Reihan Salam talks to the Economist:
DIA: What are some areas where you think Republicans can successfully work with Democrats in the future.
Mr Salam: In the far future, I imagine that there will be bipartisan cooperation on space colonisation and efforts to terraform Mars. In the nearer term, I’d like to see Republicans work closely with the Obama White House on education, an area where Jeb Bush and Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, agree on everything important. I’d also like to see cooperation on Medicare reform, but that won’t happen. Democrats and Republicans should be able to agree on giving states and local governments more flexibility when it comes to designing transportation initiatives and welfare-to-work programmes. Efforts to decentralise government united congressional Republicans and the Clinton White House, and perhaps we’ll see more of that under Barack Obama.
On space colonization, I’m afraid I have to strenuously disagree. The problem is that the Spacers will inevitable become politically independent of earth, and then use their command over superior natural resources and robots to oppress us.
On education, I’m basically in agreement. There are, however, fundamental limits to the potential scope for cross-party cooperation on much of anything as long as conservative activists succeed in making it all-but-impossible for Republican politicians to embrace taxes of any kind. Their current stance toward fiscal issues points in the long run toward their not being any money with which to fund education programs of any kind.
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