Where Did Responsibility Go? : Attitudes on debt in Orange County, a GOP base, pose a problem

Orange County, home of reliably Republican politics, has been described by the Almanac of American Politics as a place “confident of its traditional values . . . proud of American principles.” Now, however, that county’s prevailing indifference toward the obligations of bankruptcy, so evident in the trouncing of a sales tax for recovery, poses a dilemma for a party that long has regarded the place as a spiritual base.

One doesn’t hear much about that from the local Republican leaders who highlighted the “anti-tax” position in opposing Measure R and spoke so scornfully of neighbors who wanted to swallow hard and pay debts. But few American principles resonate with more power than personal responsibility as the nation worries over its eroding social fabric.

Responsibility in all things is in fact a thread that unites GOP activists otherwise divided by major social issues. Presumably, Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican National Committee, and his colleagues have not arrived at a point of sanctioning the repudiation of obligations and contracts. Accordingly, they ought to distance themselves from those Orange County leaders who were so willing to stiff the little folks and the vendors owed money by the county--some of them, by the way, loyal Republicans.

Politicians are getting a lot of mileage nowadays out of “the politics of virtue.” If they find evidence of shirked responsibility in welfare and Hollywood entertainment, they should also consider what it means to take a cavalier attitude on municipal debt.

Gov. Pete Wilson has indicated that Orange County should pay up, but he must take a real leadership role in resolving this crisis and be heard loudly and clearly. Other Republicans nationally ought to recognize the Orange County phenomenon for what it is, a kind of destructive virus that has turned up in the party’s appeal to basic values.

It is regrettable that the idea that it is somehow OK to waffle on obligations in the pursuit of ideological objectives has taken root in Orange County. The county may represent traditional values, but it’s hard to imagine that many Americans would endorse the idea of walking away from promises.