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10-14-2010, 12:14 PM
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#1 |
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Mo' holla fo' yo' dolla!
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: In a bunker in an undisclosed location
Posts: 52,694
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The GOP's Disastrous Ideas
Why Brazil, India, and China will be thrilled if Republicans win the midterms.
By Eliot SpitzerUpdated Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2010, at 1:45 PM ET John Boehner. Click image to expand.House Minority Leader John Boehner"There you go again." Those now-famous words pretty much sealed the deal in the Ronald Reagan-Jimmy Carter debate in 1980 and proved what we have seen over and over: In politics, charm and wit usually count more than facts and logic. After Reagan's victory, we set out on a path of deregulation and tax cuts, a 30-year run on borrowed money and borrowed time that ended horribly in 2008. We know now where we stand in terms of what matters: a jobs crisis, declining middle-class incomes, structural federal budget deficits, trade deficits, and on and on. And what do Republicans offer now? The Pledge to America, the guiding document of the surging Tea Party, and the resurgent Republican Party, is about as vapid a document as one can imagine. It is nothing more than an offer of candy to kids on Halloween, with no concerns about what happens after the sugar high wears off. Its numbers simply do not add up, and its deregulatory language is remarkable in the context of the past several years we have lived through. I asked one of the perceived sensible leaders of the conservative movement where the spending cuts would come from to balance the massive tax cuts offered to all citizens. He proposed two areas: the National Endowment for the Arts and public radio. It was a good laugh line, at least. These two suggested cuts—traditional conservative targets—total about $250 million, less than 1/100 of 1 percent—less than 1/10,000th—of a federal budget that totals about $3.5 trillion. Not what a true executive would consider major areas of budget concern. Realizing that this answer didn't really measure up, he then tried to suggest that privatizing Social Security—letting people out of the government system—would be the answer. No sane person thinks that would have worked out well for our seniors over the past couple of years. Advertisement Sometimes simple facts are worth repeating: During the Clinton years, marginal tax rates were raised to restore fiscal sanity, leading to federal budget surpluses, and 23 million jobs were created. During the George W. Bush presidency, marginal rates were cut, the budget was left with a severe structural deficit, only about 1 million jobs were created, and we descended into an economic cataclysm. There is no simple causal relationship to any of this, of course, especially since global macro trends have a greater impact on the American economy every year. But the simple mantra of the Tea Party and the Republican Party—low taxes and government deregulation will lead to economic vitality—is demonstrably counterfactual. Many of us had presumed that after the events of the last two years the appeal of pseudo-libertarianism would have worn off. The image of Wall Street being bailed out should have restored some sense to the debate, challenging everybody to refocus on a more rational conversation about when, how, and why government intervention in the market could work. Surely the role of a "smart" government—investing in the infrastructure and social capital necessary for long-term competitive success while setting reasoned rules to insure competition and fair play, and limit risk of over-leveraged excess in the market—would make sense to people. Could we not agree that the current demand-side crisis—with an effective unemployment rate hovering in the low teens and corporations sitting on close to $2 trillion of cash—requires another stimulus of some significant magnitude to put the 20 million unemployed back to work? And could we not also recognize that as soon as the economy stabilized, we would have to take dramatic action to restore sanity to entitlement programs that are simply unaffordable over a 25-year time horizon? Can we not oppose bonus bailouts and bridges to nowhere without opposing building the modern equivalent of the Erie Canal or the interstate highway system—the critical tunnel between New Jersey and New York, for instance? Unfortunately, it appears not. I really don't care whether Christine O'Donnell is a witch. I do care about her plan to make us competitive in a global economy. I really don't care that she didn't go to Yale, but I do wonder how she thinks we can prevent another financial sector meltdown if we don't change banking rules. We had better face up to a stark and uncomfortable reality: The clock is running out on our status as the world's dominant political and economic power. Platitudes, make believe, and hoping it will be so are not going to carry us any further. We have three weeks to make this choice. Because if we end up with a Congress and a White House that fail to re-chart our course over the next two years, it is clear who the winner will be. It will not be the person sworn in as president in 2013. It will be China, Brazil, and India. They are loving every minute of this. http://www.slate.com/id/2270799/ |
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10-14-2010, 02:03 PM
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#2 |
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Partisan
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Twixt Hell & Highwater
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Well, you can't say there aren't any people out there trying to point out that the emperor has no clothes. I just don't think the people who are invested in the supply-side dogma care about the evidence. Certainly, the blathering mouthpieces of the Right aren't going to change their tune. The Right is going to ride their "lower taxes on the rich and deregulate everything" ideology to this country's utter ruin. Obviously, the Pledge to America is just more of the same.
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10-14-2010, 02:20 PM
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~~~
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Earth Division
Posts: 19,517
Adopt-a-Bronco: Gilgamesh |
Brazil is boss hoggin' on candy.
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10-14-2010, 02:35 PM
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STOP!
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: In a van down by the river
Posts: 10,957
Adopt-a-Bronco: Von Miller |
Well, since I didn’t get any PM’s in my box, I guess we can just go on with the shallow wank-fest that is your agenda-riddled slop.
First, Eliot Spitzer. Eliot Spitzer? Can you please tell me what qualifies Eliot Spitzer to comment with any credibility as to the economic climate and the effect of tax rates in two separate presidential administrations on the deficit and jobs? No need, I’ll answer for you—NOTHING. The guy’s state has been in the news lately for being utterly broke and a financial blueprint for what not to do in running a state. Public sector employment was at an all time high for the state and his budget deficit was HUGE because of it. This isn’t opinion, it’s documented right there in the Empire Centre For New York State Policy newsletter. Without an iota of economic success on his watch, I question his credibility on this topic and you should too. It’s pretty clear that you’ll use any ol’ source, even a disgraced Democrat with a legacy of economic failure. So be it. Let’s look at his points. The Pledge to America, the guiding document of the surging Tea Party, and the resurgent Republican Party, is about as vapid a document as one can imagine. Print this screen, cuz I agree with him. The document is cumbersome, mundane, tentative, and rhetorical. The policies are half-baked and the history of watching Republicans collapse on issues for political and financial gain make this document about as useful as a roll of Charmin. I asked one of the perceived sensible leaders of the conservative movement where the spending cuts would come from I hate to steal from the Geico caveman here, but uh, WHAT? Eliot talks to ONE leader who’s ‘perceived’ to be sensible and he runs with that? I guarantee you it wasn’t Paul Ryan he talked to, so it may as well be Pee Wee Herman. But I digress. Any politician who is serious about deficit reduction does not begin with ‘National Endowment For the Arts’. This tells me that Eliot picked the first wolf in sheep’s clothing Republican he could find, and to be honest, there are a lot of them in Congress. he then tried to suggest that privatizing Social Security—letting people out of the government system—would be the answer. No sane person thinks that would have worked out well for our seniors over the past couple of years. Saying this like saying all teachers only care about their salaries. It’s too vague and, therefore, untrue. There are more than a few plans to privatize Social Security to consider. One doesn’t even give seniors the option of putting their retirement into the market but rather offers younger workers the ability to do so if they want. Spitzer is obviously shooting at a general concept when the reality is that there are specific versions of this concept that are very different and worthy of consideration. Lazy, Eliot. Lazy. During the Clinton years, marginal tax rates were raised to restore fiscal sanity, leading to federal budget surpluses, and 23 million jobs were created. During the George W. Bush presidency, marginal rates were cut, the budget was left with a severe structural deficit, only about 1 million jobs were created, and we descended into an economic cataclysm. There is no simple causal relationship to any of this, of course, especially since global macro trends have a greater impact on the American economy every year. But the simple mantra of the Tea Party and the Republican Party—low taxes and government deregulation will lead to economic vitality—is demonstrably counterfactual. Wow, at least he admits no causal relationship here. It’s about the ONLY economically literate statement he makes here. Economics, so easy even a caveman can do it. There are two elements that create a budget surplus. One is tax revenue and the other is spending that is lower than said tax revenue. Think back to the Clinton era and tell me what party was in control of spending. That’s right, it was the Republicans. They submitted a sane budget to Clinton, he signed it and lo and behold, a SURPLUS. In this case, reasonable spending created the surplus. Fast forward to the Bush years now. Here, you had marginal tax rates lowered and, as happens EVERY SINGLE TIME, tax revenue increased. See the Kennedy era, the Bush era and the Reagan era—tax revenues went up, not down when tax rates dropped. The CBO says that the tax cuts were responsible for under 15% of the current deficit, which should tell you one thing—it’s the spending, stupid. They also project that extending the tax cuts from W would keep tax revenue at about 18-20% of GDP, which is historically just right. The deficit, Eliot, came from reckless spending. Comparing Clinton’s years to Bush’s is just wrong because the variables that created what he talks about (surplus v deficit) were 180 degrees different. Again, not opinion, but simple fact. To simplify a true Tea Party economic policy to ‘low taxes and regulation’ is simplistic and untrue, but truth really isn’t what he’s motivated by, obviously. Surely the role of a "smart" government—investing in the infrastructure and social capital necessary for long-term competitive success while setting reasoned rules to insure competition and fair play, and limit risk of over-leveraged excess in the market—would make sense to people. ‘Smart’ and ‘Government’ should NEVER be used together. It’s like ‘Jumbo Shrimp’—an oxymoron and a physical impossibility. Second, investing in infrastructure is just what the stimulus plan did. It failed. Jobs were temporary and low paying. Monies were wasted on propping up failing state budgets like the one Spitzer left when he had to resign. Anyone that says our investment in infrastructure worked has the burden to prove it. We all know that unemployment numbers don’t bear that out. The part about ‘inuring competition and fair play’ is a laugher as well. The health care reform bill does JUST THE OPPOSITE. It sets up a manipulated market in which the government will not have to compete with health care providers because it has an endless stream of capital to stay afloat—yours and my money. Health care providers are already folding and cutting services because they know they cannot compete with the public option that government set up do unfairly compete. Government wants cap and trade—a bill that would devastate American companies’ competitiveness worldwide because it would hold them to standards their competitors do not have to follow. If you were a business owner, your only option would be to either cut jobs or stop hiring when you cannot compete. So please stop jerking us around with the idea that government has competence, fairness, and our best interests at heart. requires another stimulus of some significant magnitude to put the 20 million unemployed back to work I think the term for this is ‘doubling down on stupid’. Study after study has shown that increased government spending on stimulus plans directly take investment dollars from the market, which results in private sector jobs being sacrificed for government jobs. The problem is that gov’t jobs don’t produce anything. They are SOLELY a drain on the tax revenue. Meanwhile, companies that are hurting have less capital in the market with which to compete. This is not rocket science and even the bastions of liberal thought (hello Harvard, yo…) confirm it, albeit with accompanying shock and dismay. NO MORE STIMULUS PLANS, MORON. It’s the same ol’ same ol’. This guy uses concepts based in social engineering and arbitrary moral standards (odd, coming from a solicitor of whores and all…)to solve a problem that is economic in nature. I won’t expect a PM on this one either. |
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10-14-2010, 03:07 PM
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STOP!
Join Date: Dec 2002
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10-14-2010, 04:23 PM
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Partisan
Join Date: Jan 2003
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Quote:
What Spitzer is talking about are the overall themes of government economics for the last three decades. You want to parse it out and apply spending during one term and remove it during the next term and then pretend that the overall concept is still a winner. No. It's not. The overall effect of supply side economics (which has been applied to this country's economics for thirty years - with some minor variations here and there) has been a disaster. Have we changed the tax rate on the rich back to 70%? No. So that still applies. Are the rich still paying around 15% on capital gains? Yes. So that still applies. What the Right wants to do is live in a fantasy. They tell themselves that government should be limited, so say we all, but then they fantasize that government has no role at all, and their next leap of logic is that we can cut taxes even further. Then, when our infrastructure starts coming apart and the deficit spending takes us down the toilet they start blaming it on social programs. That's Spitzer's point. You never once will hear the Right say, "Gee, maybe spending four times what the world spends on defense might be a problem?" The second you start talking about cutting defense spending they say, "What about all those jobs?" They never bring up jobs when they want to cut Medicare, SS, privatize the post office, or all their other pet projects. As far as the stimulus spending argument goes, I can only imagine what the economic landscape of America would look like right now if half the banks and companies like AIG, GM, etc. would have been allowed to fail. Economists and libertarians can sit in their ivory towers and spout theory but they are never the guys with their asses on the line. I don't see how anybody can disagree with this: Surely the role of a "smart" government—investing in the infrastructure and social capital necessary for long-term competitive success while setting reasoned rules to insure competition and fair play, and limit risk of over-leveraged excess in the market—would make sense to people. Could we not agree that the current demand-side crisis—with an effective unemployment rate hovering in the low teens and corporations sitting on close to $2 trillion of cash—requires another stimulus of some significant magnitude to put the 20 million unemployed back to work? And could we not also recognize that as soon as the economy stabilized, we would have to take dramatic action to restore sanity to entitlement programs that are simply unaffordable over a 25-year time horizon? Can we not oppose bonus bailouts and bridges to nowhere without opposing building the modern equivalent of the Erie Canal or the interstate highway system—the critical tunnel between New Jersey and New York, for instance? The point is that economic dogma (which is all we hear coming out of the Right) is not going to work, only economic pragmatism will. Like I said in another thread, from what I can see (and I am not educated in economics) the picture has changed. Wall Street is getting richer while American workers are doing much worse. It appears to me that the re-capitalization and stimulus of Wall Street did nothing for the American worker. That was not true in the past when the stimulus option was applied in previous recessions. This stimulus has not led to recapitalization or jobs. Wall Street and the banks got the money and sat on it, or used it to drive up their own stock values. It's like giving a gambling addict more money. He heads straight back to the tables. Maybe the stimulus was mis-applied and should have focused more on shovel-in-the-ground kinds of things? Maybe it's because Wall Street is now a global entity and is disconnected from the economic realities of any single country? All I can see is that the continuing growth of Wall Street profits has no connection to wages and jobs anymore. We need new paradigms to live in a global economy but still protect the general welfare of the America people. We are allowing an economy to develop that destroys the middle class while making the already fabulously rich even richer. That is a recipe for disaster. Obviously, the supply-side model is an abject failure. But the Right is still trying to sell it. Last edited by Rohirrim; 10-14-2010 at 04:29 PM.. |
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10-14-2010, 05:42 PM
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Mo' holla fo' yo' dolla!
Join Date: Dec 2002
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Posts: 52,694
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10-14-2010, 06:09 PM
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Hokie since 1993
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Location: Denver, CO
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Adopt-a-Bronco: Tom Jackson |
The republicans want less taxes and less government. Which may or may not include regulation. Every law passed is a regulation. Democrats and Republicans pass laws frequently enough. These parties are all about regulation. Democrats want less taxes too.
Spitzer is an complete political hack exposed as a clown. His article is poorly written with idiotic conclusions. Spitzer wrote. "a 30-year run on borrowed money and borrowed time that ended horribly in 2008. We know now where we stand in terms of what matters: a jobs crisis, declining middle-class incomes, structural federal budget deficits, trade deficits, and on and on." Great analysis Elliot; except Republicans AND Democrats have been running this country that entire time together. So if the Democrats have run the show for 30 years, and the Republicans have run the show? Wouldn't it make it both their fault and inturn all our fault, Mr Hand? One thing is certain. Spitzer doesn't get it and that's why he had to resign from office. He does say one right thing about investing in infrastructure. We need it. What he omits is that we spend less than a percent of our GDP on infrastructure. And it's been that way for a long, long time. China spends almost 7 percent as an example. Further, no one with a brain has problems investing in infrastructure for roads and transportation and that includes Democrats and Republicans.. Last edited by Garcia Bronco; 10-14-2010 at 06:15 PM.. |
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10-14-2010, 06:39 PM
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Ring of Famer
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 8,267
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Wow, someone actually using Spitzer for proof of something? Why is it republicans in scandals should be shot, but democrats involved in scandals should be revered?
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10-14-2010, 08:15 PM
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Mo' holla fo' yo' dolla!
Join Date: Dec 2002
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10-15-2010, 12:46 AM
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24/7 Broncos
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It's amusing to me how many politicians sound like Ron Paul this time around.
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10-15-2010, 01:04 AM
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24/7 Broncos
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Say what you want about "The GOP's Disasterous Ideas," but let me ask you this:
What one thing would you point to in Obama's stimulus that serves as a monument to the success of the program? I bet you could ask this to a dozen democrat politicians and get a dozen vague and incongruent answers. Maybe something vague like "creating or saving jobs," and then encourage you to look at Recovery.gov to see for yourself. So take out your stopwatch. Time yourself. In 60 seconds, find that one program that symbolizes the success of the stimulus and can be put in the pocket of every democrat politician to point towards and say: "look! We did that!" http://www.recovery.gov There isn't a focal point to that legislation. They just crammed everything they had been trying to push through for years and called it a stimulus. It's nothing but a huge porkbarrel serving as a metaphor for waste, mismanagement, and corruption. It's a boondoggle whose magnitude scuttles any hope of similar future stimulus projects - and is ultimately fueling the democrat midterm demise. But now to draw a contrast and solidify my point. What if the top graphic on Recovery.Gov was the blue prints for a high speed rail that spans from San Francisco to New York, along with a graphic that contained the figures on how many engineers and draftsmen, and electricians, and computer workers, and construction workers, all the way down to shovel weilders were going to be hired to finish the project. If the stimulus had this kind of focus, let me ask you something: do you think the Democrats would be in danger of failing the mid-term elections next month? Say what you want about the Republicans - but don't pretend that the Democrats have any amount of competence. Their faced with a populist anti-government movement threatening to move the country towards less government, and the best thing they can do to argue in favor of their vision for economic stimulus is an unfocused plan that includes a, $800,000 program on teaching African men to wash their penises. Last edited by Taco John; 10-15-2010 at 01:07 AM.. |
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10-15-2010, 05:48 AM
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Franchise Poster
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Mid-Atlantic
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A former adviser to President Ronald Reagan told a news radio program recently that Republicans "can't get the job done" with their redux of the 1994 "Contract with America."
"[If] you're exempting two-thirds of the budget and you're focusing only on non-defense discretionary, which actually is only about 500 billion or 15 percent of the budget, it's pretty obvious you can't get the job done," said David Stockman, a former adviser to President Reagan, in a recent interview with National Public Radio. "Some economic analysts have said that if you do that, that by the year 2020, the government wouldn't have enough money to spend on anything except for Medicare, Social Security and defense if it's lucky," summarized interviewer Guy Raz. "Do you think that sounds about right?" "Yes, I do," Stockman replied. "We couldn't afford the Bush tax cuts when they were put in in 2001, 2003. Now, we're - eight years later, we're trillions in additional debt later, we're two unfinanced wars later, we're a trillion dollars of stimulus spending later, 800 billion of TARP, so it's pretty obvious if we couldn't afford them back then, in no way, shape or form can we even dream about affording them now." Republicans and a group of conservative Democrats have, in recent weeks, championed the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy as a driver of economic growth, even as most economists show the program widening America's deficit by at least $70 billion per year over the next decade. Stockman told NPR that all Republican-proposed exemptions considered, the party's "pledge" to America would leave so little room for cuts that national parks like Mount Rushmore would have to be closed, even though the GOP's actual document [PDF link] carries pictures of public parks. According to a recent CNN poll, a whopping 69 percent of Americans believe tax breaks for individuals making over $200,000 and families making over $250,000 annually should expire at the end of this year, as the Bush administration had planned. Eighty-one percent favor extending them for Americans making less than that, which both parties largely agree with. There is strong agreement between Democrats and Republicans on continuing the tax cuts for individuals earning less than $200,000 per year and families earning less than $250,000 – those making more are set to have their taxes return to Bill Clinton-era levels unless Republicans and dissenting Democrats get their way. Under Obama’s proposal, individual income above $200,000 would be taxed at 39.6 percent rather than 36 percent come January – even the wealthy would continue to pay the same lower rate for their earnings below that figure. President Obama has described Republicans' efforts to block the expiration of tax cuts for the wealthy as standing in the way of continuing tax cuts for the middle class. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, extending all the Bush tax cuts would yield economic growth worth only 10 to 40 percent of each dollar lost in government revenues. But the projections note that continuing the breaks for low income earners would be more stimulative as they would spend more of it than the wealthy. The CBO added Thursday that extending the tax cuts for all but the rich would likely boost economic growth in the short-run but could hamper it over the next decade as the deficit would rise to 8 percent of GDP by 2020. Stockman also told NPR that he believes taxes will have to be raised on the vast majority of Americans, whether they like it or not, adding that Obama is being dishonest when he pledges a tax cut for middle-class USA. The economy is weak because of our irresponsible fiscal and monetary policies over the last 10, 20 or even 30 years, " he said. "And it's going to keep getting weaker unless we face up to the problem. So, yes, it's the chicken and egg. If we cut spending and raise taxes, it may slow down the economy even more, but that's unfortunately the choice that we face." During an interview with Fox News Sunday, House minority leader John Boehner implied that American voters are not yet ready for real budget solutions, which is why the GOP plan leaves so much discretionary spending on the table. "It seems that Boehner is content to leave the American people uncertain as to what the Republican's would do to help the economy besides extending the Bush tax cuts," CBS summarized. Republicans, long supporters of doing away with Social Security as a national safety net, could effectively end the program and mandate private retirement savings accounts based on the stock market, according to a Baltimore Sun analysis of the party's pledge. "Buried in the twenty-one-page document is the real pledge: a discussion of 'reviewing' Social Security and other entitlement programs and a commitment to a program 'requiring a full accounting of Social Security,'" The Nation noted. "DC bureaucrat-speak, to be sure," John Nichols continued. "But it is not hard to translate." He concludes: "Either the pledge is an outline for massive new debts and deficits or it is a roadmap to the privatization of Social Secuity, Medicare and Medicaid. "To suggest otherwise would be to engage in what another George Bush once described as 'voodoo economics.'" http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/r...-you-job-done/ |
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10-15-2010, 06:15 AM
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Franchise Poster
Join Date: Apr 2008
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Reagan was the most successful Republican president since Teddy Roosevelt, and the only effective conservative leader of the last half century. Republicans who think Reagan is truth (and truth Reagan) may be overdoing it. But he’s still the GOP’s best model of how to win and how to lead.
The problem, then, is not that conservatives are searching for lessons in his record. It’s that they’re learning the wrong ones. In the years since Reagan left the White House, a vocal contingent of Republicans has sought to enforce current party orthodoxy—cut taxes at all costs; limit government spending (except defense); let the Bible be your guide—by insisting that Reagan was its source. But while these concepts often shaped Reagan’s campaign rhetoric, they didn’t define how he governed once in office. As a result, the Reagan that Republicans now revere—a mythical founder figure who always cut taxes, always rattled his saber, and always consulted Jesus—barely resembles the more pragmatic Reagan who actually ran the country. Only six months ago, the Republican National Committee considered subjecting all GOP candidates to a Reaganite purity test that Reagan himself would have failed. http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/09/w...really-do.html |
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10-15-2010, 09:58 AM
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24/7 Broncos
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Republicans, long supporters of doing away with Social Security as a national safety net, could effectively end the program and mandate private retirement savings accounts based on the stock market, according to a Baltimore Sun analysis of the party's pledge. Finally some good news! I don't understand how people can't see how privatizing these programs would be a net positive. How nice to know that at the very least, the money that is being taken from you presumably for your retirement is there for you - and that it's not just a ponzi scheme that you have to hope the next generation can afford when it's your turn. Last edited by Taco John; 10-15-2010 at 10:01 AM.. |
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10-15-2010, 10:33 AM
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Partisan
Join Date: Jan 2003
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Keep in mind, the boomers paid extra taxes in the 80s to build up a surplus to cover their, and the former generation's, retirement. The reason we are talking about it now is because the ****ing politicians raided that surplus and spent it. They stole the boomers' retirement fund and now they want to blame it on the victims of their crime.
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10-15-2010, 10:48 AM
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Ring of Famer
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 The boomers spent like they had money tree farms, the idea of savings is lost to the boomers. You brought this upon yourselves not only in your spending habits, but in your general lack of knowledge of what was going on. |
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10-15-2010, 10:56 AM
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10-15-2010, 11:13 AM
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Hokie since 1993
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10-15-2010, 11:21 AM
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24/7 Broncos
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10-15-2010, 11:21 AM
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24/7 Broncos
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10-15-2010, 12:17 PM
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Partisan
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10-15-2010, 12:27 PM
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Ring of Famer
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Adopt-a-Bronco: Zane Beadles |
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You come on here with this "poor boomer" take, it is the boomers who have gotten us into this mess. I sit here and go "WTF", how has this guy managed to insert his head so far up his own ass? |
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10-15-2010, 12:45 PM
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Partisan
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10-15-2010, 12:49 PM
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Franchise Poster
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Mid-Atlantic
Posts: 15,547
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Good read from Weigel:
If the GOP came roaring back by going further to the right, their theory went, that would prove that they didn't understand why they governed so poorly in the first place. They would think that all they needed to do was bang on about tax cuts and the Constitution, and that would not only win the election but make them govern more intelligently. Of course, to the horror of the smart set, this is exactly what is happening... "The Republicans didn't turn around their own fortunes at all," says Mickey Edwards, a former congressman, now Aspen Institute fellow, who did the lecture circuit for his book Reclaiming Conservatism. "They were bystanders. When I read their new 'Contract from America,' or whatever they're calling it, there's nothing really new there, other than we didn't do a good job last time and need to do better. I don't know what that means." He pauses. "But the first Contract With America was a really dumb thing in the first place." http://www.slate.com/id/2270037/pagenum/all/#p2 And a follow up from Larison: Republican gains are not driven by popular support for a positive Republican agenda of any kind. Neither are they being driven by an ideological rejection of the administration’s agenda. One can defend or mock the “Pledge to America,” and one can sympathize with or scorn Tea Partiers, but neither of them has much to do with reviving GOP political fortunes. The reality is that Republican gains this year are the product of immense economic discontent and anxiety to which few conservatives have plausible answers. One doesn’t have to like the policy recommendations of “reformist” conservatives to acknowledge that they have been just about the only ones on the right trying to provide those answers. Their answers have tended to dominate discussions of reforming conservatism because they’re the only ones actively engaged in the conversation. When the dust settles and Republican office-holders are looking for advice on policy and legislation, “reformists” will win the day for lack of serious competition. http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2010...tive-comeback/ |
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