Richard Viguerie
Posted on 08/07/2006 11:17:27 PM PDT by freepatriot32
WASHINGTON – One of the architects of the Reagan Revolution is calling on fellow conservatives to withhold support of the Republican Party establishment – including most GOP incumbents in Congress this year.
In "Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause," Richard Viguerie, the man who invented the idea of using direct mail as a means of going over the heads of what he considered to be a biased establishment press, says it's time for radical action to save the Republican Party from itself.
His plan includes the following actions, which would spell bad news for the GOP in the 2006 midterm congressional elections and in the 2008 presidential election:
Withhold financial support from Republican committees and most Republican incumbents.
Withhold support from all 2008 presidential candidates.
No longer call yourself "a Republican" but rather a Reagan Republican or a Reagan conservative.
And work for wholesale change in Republican leadership. While not advocating GOP defeat, Viguerie says conservatives should not fear the loss of Congress in 2006, since the biggest gains usually follow a defeat. He points to 1976 when Gerald Ford's loss made possible Ronald Reagan's victory in 1980 and to 1992 when George H.W. Bush's loss made possible the Republican congressional victories in 1994.
Viguerie helped transform American politics by pioneering the use of direct-mail fundraising in the political and ideological spheres. Dubbed by some as the "Funding Father of the conservative movement," Viguerie motivated millions of Americans to participate in politics for the first time
In his new book, Viguerie shows federal spending under the Bush administration has grown five times larger than that during the second term of the Clinton administration, painting the president as a traitor to his party.
Viguerie compares spending by the federal government, adjusted for inflation, during the Clinton years vs. the Bush years. In Clinton's first term, federal expenditures rose 4.7 percent. In his second term, they rose 3.7 percent. In the first term of the Bush administration, however, spending rose 19.2 percent.
"If ever there was a case for divided government, here it is," writes Viguerie. "The lesson for many Americans is that today's Republicans cannot be trusted with the keys to both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government."
No matter how you slice it, Viguerie says, Bush makes Clinton look like a spending piker by comparison. For instance, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University in New York keeps records that show how much the federal government spends on average each year for each person in the country.
When this standard of measurement is used, the comparison between the two administrations is even more pronounced.
Cumulative growth in federal expenditures, adjusted for inflation, during the Clinton years actually shrunk by 1.1 percent. Yet, in the Bush first term, it rose 15 percent.
"During President Bush's first five years in office, the federal government increased by $616 billion," Viguerie writes. "That's a mammoth 33 percent jump in the size of the federal government in just his first five years! To put this in perspective, this increase of $616 billion is more than the entire federal budget in Jimmy Carter's last years in office. And conservatives were complaining about Big Government back then! How can Bush, (Dennis) Hastert, (Bill) Frist and company look us in the eye and tell us they are fiscal conservatives when in five short years they increased the already-bloated government by more than the budget for the entire federal government when Ronald Reagan was assuming office?"
Richard Viguerie
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
Never heard of him. Does he work for Soros?
Crackpot.
Gee, and I don't suppose that war thing in Iraq and Afganistan has anything to do with the fact that Bush is spending more money.
Just another irrelevant fellow who once enjoyed a measure of fame hoping to get back in the bright lights. I call Old Goofball.
YEAH... Teach 'em a lesson Viggie!
'Course, you'll only end up hurting the GOP, the country AND conservatives!
It CERTAINLY won't hurt leftists. In FACT it is what they are HOPING for... us to bring out the long knives for each other!
Don't be silly. The DoD percentage of the GDP is relatively similar to what Clinton(3.5% vs. 4.1) spent during his time in office.
Carter spent more per GDP on the DoD than Bush. If we are at WW3 I would expect at least 5%+ going to the DoD. Thats simply not the case.
Never heard of him. Does he work for Soros?
Never heard of him. Does he work for Soros?He was a great architect of early conservative grass roots organizations. A genius for direct mail fund raising. He should be thanked and never forgotten for that work. But, now he is just plain wrong. I am as mad as anyone at Congress. But, Conservatives have never numbered more than 1/3 of the GOP. Yet, without that 1/3 the GOP cannot get elected. And, with the GOP IN power, conservatives at LEAST have a seat at the table. Without the GOP in power conservative have and will ALWAYS have NOTHING politically. No seat at the table. No half a loaf. No influence at all. It will be 1964 all over again with conservatives on the outside looking in. If Viggie wants to have NOTHING, then abandoning the GOP will do it for him. Whether we like it or not, politics is a game of the POSSIBLE, a world of coalitions and compromise. Not a utopian dreamworld where anyone can get everything they want. In FACT, our very system is set up to help assure that no one gets ALL they want.
Thanks for the info.
For a moment I thought I was better known!
(joke)
You must be quite young, or new to conservative activism.
Well, those things aside, the you have to admit that the pubbies have been working to be more "compassionate" than "conservative" since we've held both the legislative and executive branches... I think that they've done it to take away a lot of the dems "issues." Of course, the media doesn't give them any "credit."
But lets face it... Congress has been spending money on non-defense programs in a way that gives "drunken sailors" a bad name. More like a teenager who's got daddy's platinum card at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch!
Mark
You must be quite immature.
I am older than the hills overlooking the plains.
Unless you have read everything by Jack London, Hemmingway, Sinclair Lewis, Shakespeare, and know the Niebelungenlied, you are as stated above.
Chues!
He is right about one thing: the Republican leadership is NOT conservative. They are Christian Socialists. The GOP needs to get back to the basic, libertarian conservatism that Jefferson, Goldwater and Reagan represented.
I'm hardly immature. But as there is little worth in conversing with ad hominem fools, I'll leave you to your self-adulation.
Thank you.
This old, used up, vile man should be ignored by all.
This vile man needs to just shut up.
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