Had to write a bit of a pessimistic thing over at American Spectator today.
The Republicans are not losing people because of being racist sexist homophobes as the press would have you believe, but because they are spending like Democrats.
Why should someone fight the stream of vitriol against Republicans in the media and professoriat? Just to run interference for a bunch of guys who will deliver the pork in marginally smaller containers? Nah.
10 comments:
I thought your American Spectator article was excellent. It baffles me why Bush has lately been pandering to the Left, which will go to its collective grave hating him no matter what he does, and ignoring his own base, both visible and invisible. The one tie that binds Republicans, whether the social liberals, like Ah-nuld, or the intense conservatives, like, well, like most Republicans, is a belief that Government is too big and too expensive. To hear Bush pledge to use my tax dollars to rebuild New Orleans -- a City below sea level, boasting the highest violent crime rate in America, and run by the most corrupt local and state governments one can imagine -- just made me crazy. And since I precisely fit your demographic of closet Republicans, Bush should be very worried about disaffection amongst people like me.
Bookworm, thanks for the affection (save the disaffection for Bush).
LA, it's true Clinton delivered a balanced budget, but it's equally true that it occurred without any help from him. The dotcom boom radically increased income and therefore tax revenues. Because of incremental predictions about revenue, the federal government never knew it would have that much money available to spend. If it had known, it would have spent.
Hunter, although you and I both know that you're right, the fact is that we have a problem on our hands.
The bottom line that people see is: Big deficits under Reagan-Bush, balanced budget under Clinton, big deficits under Bush II.
To ask people to still see the Republicans as the party of fiscal restraint becomes difficult.
I think our problem is less about the historical budget figures than it is about our priorities. Bush has shown zero interest in reducing the size of government in any sector. That's not Reaganesque at all. I fully believe that if Reagan had been equipped with the kind of majorities Bush II has, he would have reduced the size of gov't, particularly non-defense spending.
The only two presidents whose terms saw balanced budgets in over 100 years were JFK and Clinton. Republican presidents have been more profligate than Democrats.
Factually inaccurate, James. Prior to Clinton, Nixon was the last pres. to have a balanced budget. I think we would find balanced budgets occurring frequently prior to Nixon's last balanced budget.
Hat tip to Liberal Anonymous (don't you wish the hat was a derby and I gave you a Derby tip?) for that fish tale from Alaska.
Clearly, the Republicans are having trouble swimming upstream against the currency.
Actually, Nixon leads the list in presidents who expanded domestic spending during the 20th century...
Me again, just to let you know that I linked.
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