Time for free-market populism from the GOP

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

President Obama, ignoring his own calls to leave rhetoric at the door, has relied on populist demagoguery throughout the debt-ceiling negotiations. But given the President's record of bailouts, his dedication to corporate-welfare handouts, and his calendar filled with $35,800-a-plate fundraisers, Republicans ought to take the populist cudgel from Obama and use it against Democrats.

Obama reached the height of misleading populist bombast at the Twitter town hall last week when he accused Republicans of using the debt ceiling "as a gun against the heads of the American people to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners, or oil and gas companies that are making billions of dollars because the price of gasoline has gone up so high."

Obama's statement, like much of what he says on taxes, is misleading in many ways. He makes it sound like Republicans are trying to create special targeted tax breaks, while Republicans actually are -- for better or worse -- fighting off Obama-proposed special targeted tax increases that, in many cases, amount to pure discrimination against politically unpopular companies.

But discrimination against profitable and politically unpopular companies is what populist demagoguery is all about. Republicans feel handcuffed: Who wants to defend Big Oil, even if the facts are on your side?

Instead of trying to defend themselves against Obama's misleading populism, Republicans ought to return fire with some sincere populism in this debt battle.

Populism may seem out of place coming from the GOP -- with its reputation as the party of Big Business, its leaders traipsing around golf courses (John Boehner), joking about being unemployed (Mitt Romney), and sipping $300 bottles of wine (Paul Ryan) -- but Obama's record of crony capitalism makes him a ripe target for attack.

Obama delivered the game-winning RBI for the Wall Street bailout in 2008, and rewarded the bailout's authors, Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner, with renomination and a promotion, respectively.