In this inaugural Chairman’s Corner I would like to talk about how one of our Party’s greatest leaders might interpret our current economic crisis. Of course Abraham Lincoln is most famous for his Gettysburg address and the Emancipation Proclamation, but since he is the most written about figure in American history, it isn’t hard to get a pretty good idea about how he might view a nearly $1 trillion stimulus package and how his Cabinet may have been more equipped to better solve it.

Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 election was critical in that it marked a change in existing patterns of party loyalties among groups of voters – much like we see today. So we return to his words from the campaign trail that helps outline the platform in the simplest of all terms: "What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?" Lincoln's Cooper Institute Address, February 27, 1860.

“The old and tried.” It’s not an exciting phrase, but it’s certainly reliable and in this current environment, we have a few examples to which we can look to see results from old and tried philosophies. But first, in order to see how Lincoln might have analyzed it, we need to define what this stimulus package is for the country. We are now in a shrinking economy where unemployment is high and credit is scarce. To stimulate jobs, heal industries and get credit moving again, the government is proposing to take $800+ billion in tax dollars and spend it on government projects. All of these are plans crafted by the current administration’s Cabinet.

Lincoln’s famous Team of Rivals (Bates, Chase and Seward) were his former opponents for the office of President that eventually became his Cabinet. As we struggle to find answers to our current problems of bipartisanship we sometimes want to draw comparisons to Obama’s selection of Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson (now withdrawn) as a similar move – after all, Obama called Team of Rivals an “essential” book for the office of President.

However, it must be noted that the brilliance behind Lincoln’s picks were that his rivals, in many cases, were ideological and philosophical opponents. Salmon Chase (Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury) threatened resignation three times citing incompatibility, but Lincoln continually refused it. William Seward (Lincoln’s Secretary of State) tried to subvert President Lincoln's will regarding the resupply of Fort Sumter.

Our current President, while having stacked his Cabinet with some rivals, finds none that are ideological opponents. If anything, the three Democratic Senators, two Democratic Representatives, and three Democratic Governors are ideological “yes” men and women that do not challenge the Party rhetoric to find the best ideas for the citizens. Imagine the balance and value from someone like Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney being added to the Cabinet.

President Obama is clearly not following Lincoln’s thought that “You cannot stay out of trouble by spending more than you earn.” So who is the new President trying to be? History will show us a quote that may shed some light: “Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.” That was stated by none other than Jimmy Carter.

"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, "Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, Maryland" (April 18, 1864), p. 301-302.

Surely, on the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the younger President from Illinois would see the current economic stimulus plan as liberty, while the elder President from Illinois would see the package as nothing more than tyranny, and perhaps a re-tread of failed policies of the recent past.