Shocking: A Smart Idea From A Republican

It still might get screwed up in the execution (it's a gift the GOP seems to have) but I like this idea:

Via an email release-

Senator Ron Johnson (WI), Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting and Oversight today announced the release of the first installment of his Victims of Government project. The series will perform oversight of the cost and impact of unnecessary, ineffective, and excessive federal regulations. Johnson also invited anyone who has been dealing with excess regulation to submit their stories on his Senate website.

“The root cause of our economic and fiscal problems is the size, the scope, and the cost of government - all the rules, all the regulations, and all the government intrusion into our lives," Johnson said. “The Victims of Government series is designed to demonstrate that - in a very personal and powerful way. Over-regulation consumes massive amounts of the people’s money, too often lacks common sense, has no heart, costs jobs and economic growth."

This is something I was on about over the weekend on Twitter. The GOP has a tendency to "tell" and not "show". We've some how gotten to the point where we've decided that showmanship is a bad thing and we can simply rely on "White Paper" presentations. Well we live in a listicle world now.

One thing that drove me nuts during the campaign was that Republicans would say "Dodd-Frank is killing the economy" and audiences would cheer. How many people can name 3 provisions of Dodd-Frank that are bad? Did the GOP ever once trot out a person who was harmed by it? No, they didn't. But the Democrats would run out a motley assortment of people who were "saved" because Obama was giving them money for their mortgage or "standing up to Wall Street".

We can say "government is bad" but we're up against sob stories that the Democrats trot out. If we want to convince people that big government is bad, we need to show it. We need to have "real" people make the case, in concrete terms and in formats (video, infographics, and yes...listicles) that can be shared and easily digested. You may not like that this is what it has come to but that's irrelevant. This is what it's come to.

That's where this project can still go wrong. It's great to collect these stories but how are they going to convey the results?

Still it's a step in the right direction.

Here's the link if you have a story to share.

Below the fold: A kick off story of a family screwed over by the government.

posted by DrewM. at 03:01 PM

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