Five years ago, during the Gore-Bush race, the Republicans took a firm stand against using government to push ideological social goals.
Mr. Cheney also echoed Mr. Bush’s contention that Mr. Gore’s tax cut plan, which would provide relief for those putting money into savings accounts, college tuition, child care and other specific purposes, would serve as a form of social engineering.
“If you live your life the way they want you to live your life, if you do, in fact, behave in a certain way, then you qualify for a tax credit,” he said.
As Republicans have come to dominate the federal government since then, times sure have changed.
Congress is considering a plan by Kansas Senator Sam Brownback to pay low-income couples in the nation’s capital to get married.
Brownback heads a Senate subcommittee in charge of the budget of Washington, D.C., where more than half of all children are raised by single parents. His plan would give single parents an incentive to marry, offering qualified couples up to nine-thousand dollars to buy a home, start a business or begin a college fund.
Brownback says the incentives would help create more stable families.
In 1993, Henry Hyde wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post in which he lambasted the Clinton White House for its radical belief that government could use its power to interfere with “the traditional family.” Hyde called the very idea “exotic social engineering.”
The right may not want to admit it, but Republicans over the last five years have embraced social engineering as much, if not more, than anyone since the Great Society. The marriage initiative, faith-based initiative, fatherhood initiative, abstinence-only programs … social engineering is predicated on the idea that the power of the state can alter how people can and will behave. It used to be anathema for anyone who valued “limited” government.
The Bush presidency didn’t herald the end of the government’s drive towards social engineering; it marked the end of even worrying about it.