Republicans need to be a 'big-tent party,' Gov. Robert Bentley says

Republicans in Alabama and the United States as a whole need to have a big tent and accept differences of opinion if they want to win elections and achieve their goals, Gov. Robert Bentley told a Republican gathering in Vestavia Hills this morning.

Speaking to about 125 people at a meeting of the Mid-Alabama Republican Club at the Vestavia Hills Library in the Forest, Bentley said it’s time to quit calling people “RINOs” (Republicans in name only) just because they favor a different way of doing things.

Republicans now have a supermajority in the Alabama Legislature, and there are different philosophies within that supermajority, and that’s OK, Bentley said.

”It’s OK if we disagree on certain avenues of solutions. There’s nothing wrong with that,” Bentley said. “We ought to accept that and accept each other without tearing each other apart.

“If we called everybody a RINO that we disagree with, then Ronald Reagan would have been the biggest RINO this country has ever had, and I think he’s the greatest president  we ever had,” Bentley said.

Reagan, even though he promised to cut taxes and did help cut income tax rates and capital gains taxes, pushed through 11 other taxes and gave amnesty to 6 million illegal immigrants, Bentley said.

“He knew they had to do it to get things under control,” the governor said. “You have to have taxes to run government.”

Bentley, who faced steep criticism this year for advocating $302 million in tax increases to support the state’s general fund, said he likes that Alabama has some of the lowest taxes in the nation, but the government needs some taxes to meet the needs of its people.

Bentley said when he first came into office in 2011, the state was basically broke and had been relying on federal stimulus money to prop up its budgets.

Bentley said he worked hard to make government smaller and more efficient, cutting the number of state employees by 12.5 percent during his first four years. But that was not enough to solve the state’s budget woes, he said.

Bentley proposed raising taxes on tobacco products and raising the maximum business privilege tax from $15,000 to $25,000 while eliminating a $100 minimum tax on businesses with a net worth of less than $10,000.

He also wanted to shift $225 million in revenue received through the state’s use tax from the Education Trust Fund to the general fund to give the general fund a source of revenue that could grow. He presented a plan to replace $194 million of the money taken from the Education Trust Fund with money from other sources.

Ultimately, the Legislature passed budgets that raised cigarette taxes by 25 cents a pack, created new taxes on pharmacies and nursing homes, and shifted $80 million from use tax revenues to the general fund.

Bentley today said it’s important for people – including elected officials and political candidates – to focus on finding solutions to problems.

“Let’s continue to work together. Let’s continue to encourage each other, even when we don’t agree on some things,” he said. “People have different avenues to get to the same goal. Let’s don’t get so rigid in our thinking that we can’t allow other people to go a little different route to get to where we want to go because our ultimate goal ought to be one thing … and that’s to make the lives of the people of the state of Alabama better.”

That means everybody in the state, even those that don’t vote for you, he said. He worked to bring 300 new jobs to Wilcox County, even though he only received 20 percent of the vote from Wilcox County, he said. If the lives of people in Wilcox County improve, then the whole state gets better, he said.

Republicans need to be a “big-tent party” and not forget to connect with average Americans. “If we don’t really connect with average Americans …. then Hillary Clinton is going to be the next president,” Bentley said.

Seventy-one percent of Americans said they believed Republican Mitt Romney would handle the economy better than Democrat Barack Obama, but 70 percent of Americans said they believed Obama cared more about them as people, Bentley said. That’s why Obama won, he said.

“People vote with the heart. They don’t vote always with the head,” Bentley said.

Helen McMahon, a Hoover woman who served 20 years on the Alabama Republican Party’s executive committee and 30 years on the Jefferson County Republican Executive Committee, said she agreed with Bentley that the party should have a big tent and encompass everyone.

Vestavia Hills Mayor Butch Zaragoza said it will take that for Republicans to have success. As a general rule, Republicans are too complacent and don’t come out to vote as much as the Democrats, he said.

He also thinks it’s important for people to work together, even if they disagree on some issues. “It’s a give and take situation on all sides,” he said.

Bentley today talked about how it’s easy for political candidates and onlookers to say what they would do in office, but they really don’t know the reality of the situation until they get into office. It requires some tough decisions that won’t make everyone happy, even within the same party, he said.

Taney Brazeal, an investment advisor from Vestavia Hills who attended today’s meeting, said he didn’t appreciate Bentley campaigning for re-election on a platform of no new taxes and then turning around and advocating new taxes once in office.

“I think that’s very disingenuous,” he said.

Bentley had already been in office four years and should have been well aware of the state’s finances when he was campaigning, he said. He would like to hear the governor's definition of what a RINO is, he said.

Donna Collins, a Democrat from Shelby County, came to hear Bentley speak today and liked what she heard.

Elected officials need to be less focused on whether people are Democrats and Republicans and more focused on solving problems and bringing jobs to Alabama, she said.