Joseph Sabino Mistick: Good Republican ideas

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit,” Democratic President Harry S. Truman said. As the nation wrestles with what it means to “reach across the aisle,” Democrats can start by conceding that they have not cornered the market on good ideas.

Nicholas F. Brady was secretary of the treasury under Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. In a 2011 op-ed in The Washington Post, Brady sounded like he had been coaching President Biden for his speech last week to a joint session of Congress.

Brady said that Wall Street had moved away from financing “the building of this country’s industrial capacity and infrastructure” and “toward financial innovation for financial profit’s sake.”

Brady called money made that way “addictive,” saying that it “blew up our financial system” in 2008. “It drove people on Wall Street into activities that had no redeeming social value, and it disoriented executive pay scales.”

Brady stated that he had no specific legislative fix for out-of-control executive compensation, saying instead, “There is nothing wrong with seeking profit. But I’ve always been impressed by the military dictum, which is that the officers eat last.”

That same commonsense approach is at the root of Biden’s plan to tax the top 1% and to begin closing the income gap with workers, which grew even wider through the pandemic. And that should appeal to Republicans and Democrats alike.

Almost 40 years ago, six-term Republican Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico had a financing plan that would address our infrastructure needs long term, while eliminating the once-in-every-generation panicked drive for legislative funding.

We ignore our roads, bridges, lead water pipes, energy grid and other essentials for decades, often until it is nearly too late. That’s why we will spend much of Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan just catching up with deferred maintenance.

Domenici proposed state infrastructure banks, seeded by the federal government, that could issue bonds to fund ongoing maintenance and rebuilding. That would be safer and cheaper, without the political drama.

Republican President Ronald Reagan signed the last immigration reform bill in 1986, which was called “the humane approach” by Republican Sen. Alan K. Simpson, its chief sponsor.

In 2013, the “Gang of Eight” — four Republicans and four Democrats — compromised on an immigration bill that passed the Senate with bipartisan support, but it died in the House of Representatives.

Former Republican President George W. Bush, who campaigned on immigration reform, recently wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that the country’s 11 million illegal immigrants should be “brought out of the shadows.” And he proposed a gradual process to do that.

Conservative columnist Hugh Hewitt recently proposed a new bipartisan strategy for immigration reform, led by Bush and Democratic President Clinton.

“It is time for America to fix its most pressing internal problems free of political posturing so it can focus on the far larger and more dangerous issues looming from abroad,” Hewitt wrote.

Both parties should take to heart what former Republican Sen. John McCain said in 2017. “We’ve been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle.”