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I Disagree with Vance Agreeing with His Opponent

Dan Proft Commentary

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JD Vance roundly received high marks for his debate performance and rightfully so. He exhibited poise. He generally offered cogent, rational answers. He dwarfed Field Marshal Walz on policy knowledge. And, importantly, Vance did a better job of presenting Trump as a pragmatic problem-solver than Trump himself did during his debate.

But there was one aspect of Vance’s performance that was troubling: his agreement with his oafish Bolshevik of an opponent on so many issues…

…My criticism is not of Vance’s amiable, polite and gentlemanly demeanor or even his repeated concession that Walz is well-intended, though the latter was unnecessarily effusive and aided Walz in illegitimately positioning himself as a non-threatening, knuckleheaded sit-com dad despite the fact he is a ghoulish fabulist who sanctions both withholding medical treatment to babies who survive abortions and allowing kids who do make it out of the womb to mutilate themselves.

Rather, my overriding concern is how often Vance started from the same policy premise as Walz.

Vance said, “I agree with my opponent” ten times. It wasn’t like Walz confined his remarks to observing that water is wet and the sun sets in the West.

For example, Vance’s criticism of the backdoor Green New Deal wasn’t that it was inflationary cronyism but only that the taxpayer-funded solar panel manufacturing should be done in the US not China.

On paid family leave, Vance did not suggest this was a private employer-employee matter. He agreed with Walz that paid family leave should be mandated and funded by the federal government.

On child care, Vance did not suggest dramatically reducing taxes as well as government subsidies to grow families’ disposable income while reducing the cost of care. He agreed with Walz that it should be further subsidized by the federal government and a Trump-Vance administration would use revenues derived from taxing imports to finance those increased subsidies.

On the backdoor takeover of health care called Obamacare, don’t expect Vance to be pushing for a market-based replacement after congratulating Trump for salvaging it.

I recognize now is not the time to have an internal fight about the Republican Party’s philosophy on the role of government. Just consider this me putting a marker down for discussion at a later date because that debate is in the offing regardless of the outcome on November 5th.

Is government a force for good or a necessary evil to be strictly limited? That’s the big question.

Based on the entitlements, mandates, tax credits and other industrial policy manipulations for which Vance has expressed support during his short time in the Senate, I suspect he is the camp that sees government as a force for good forever in “partnership” with valued individuals and organizations.

And that is the approach that has America $35 trillion in debt with another $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

Perhaps this is not the case. Maybe, solely out of political expediency, Vance chose to appeal to those who thoughtlessly feel their way through life by being conciliatory with his paternalistic opponent to signal that he too will ensure obligation-free government provisions for them.

That is the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is Vance and Walz really do agree that much because to agree with Tim Walz in principle is to eliminate any limiting principle on the size, scope and cost of government.

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