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Principles
Our guiding principles generally fall to the right on economic and fiscal matters, but to the left on cultural issues such as abortion, gay rights, and church-state separation.
The principle behind our stance on cultural issues is fairly simple. We believe a diverse nation needs to embrace all of its people, and that it's inappropriate to use government to apply the moral convictions of some citizens on others.
Our views on fiscal and economic issues are rooted in a more complex analysis.
First, we believe economic growth is the single most important goal of economic and fiscal policy. A growing economy tends to lessen any of the wide variety of social challenges we face. It also produces more tax revenues to help meet rising government obligations.
We embrace economic policies that promote competition, open world trade markets, and establish a simplified, rational regulatory system.
The second major consideration is our ongoing fiscal imbalance. Over the last quarter century, our nation has experienced several periods of rapidly rising public debt. We began making modest payments on the debt in the late 1990s, but have since returned to fiscal red ink. Generally, we fail to make payments during good times anywhere near proportionate to the debts we incur during bad times.
Add to that the rapid rise of public obligations we expect in the near future, as the baby boom generation begins to retire, and we have a fundamentally strained fiscal environment within which to make policy.
We believe there are solutions to this difficult fiscal puzzle, but only if we control spending, implement fundamental entitlement reforms, and maintain a strong economy that generates increasing tax revenues.
We believe fundamental reforms in these areas can actually make government work more effectively.
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