Posted on 05/02/2015 8:09:28 AM PDT by Kaslin
At last count there were about three dozen potential candidates for president on the Republican side. Although Hillary Clinton is the expected Democratic nominee, should she falter, there are probably about a half dozen people ready to take her place. Without knowing who the candidates will be and without knowing who will win the election, can we say today with some confidence what difference a Republican or a Democratic victory would mean in 2016?
Paul Krugman asked this question the other day in The New York Times. His answer: parties matter a lot more than candidates, and if a Democrat is elected you can be sure of four things:
Support for maintaining all major entitlement programs and resistance to any major reform.
Support for maintaining high taxes on high-income Americans.
Keeping the current financial reform regulations.
More action on global warming.
This is one of the very few times when I actually agree with Krugman. But he didn’t go far enough. What would we expect if any of the three dozen potential Republican candidates were elected?
Education reform. Although the Democrats talk about inequality a great deal, it is almost self-evident that for people to climb to a higher rung on the income ladder, we have to improve the public schools. Yet aside from Rahm Emanuel and one or two others, Democrats seem to be owned lock, stock and barrel by the teachers’ unions. Teachers vote and kids can’t vote. That’s about all there is to it.
The irony is that the parents of the children Republicans would most like to help tend to consistently vote for the very Democratic politicians who are opposed to that help.
Entitlement reform. There was a time, not long ago, when there was a bi-partisan understanding that we have promised far more than we can pay for. Bill Clinton was part of that understanding. So was Barrack Obama. In 2008 candidate Obama made a campaign promise to reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. He appointed Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles to head a commission to propose solutions. Yet when the report came back, the president ignored it. In all likelihood, the next Democrat in the White house will do that exact same thing.
Tax reform. There was also a time, not long ago, when leaders in both parties understood the need for tax reform. That’s how we got the historic agreement in 1986 to cap the top income tax rate at 28 percent. Now the top rate is almost 40 percent. Our corporate tax rates are among the highest in the world and they are encouraging capital (and jobs) to go elsewhere. I believe that every single Republican candidate will unhesitatingly support tax reform. Democrats may occasionally pay lip service to the idea. But I detect no enthusiasm for it whatsoever.
Incidentally, although Paul Krugman and other critics are fond of saying that Republican tax policy favors the rich, the reason so many Americans aren’t paying any income tax at all is largely because of Republican legislation. As economist Michael Stroup has shown, every Republican tax cut from Ronald Reagan to George Bush has left the total tax system more progressive than it previously was.
Regulatory reform. In 2013 alone, the Obama administration added 80,000 pages of new regulations to the Federal Register (see Sen. Mike Lee’s demonstration of what they look like stacked on top of each other). At a minimum, the next Republican occupant of the White House will favor a cost/benefit approach with a disposition to conclude that unless the benefits of a regulation are convincingly greater than the cost, we probably don’t need it.
Free Trade. It was Bill Clinton who presided over the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994 (NAFTA) and Barack Obama is about to preside over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). But it is not clear that the next Democrat in the White House will be open to trade liberalization at all. Almost any Republican, however, is like to be committed to dismantling other barriers to international trade.
Now if you look over Krugman’s list and my list, you will notice something interesting. With the exception of global warming, the Republicans are the reformers. It’s the Democrats who want to keep things like they are. The Democrats, if you will, are the conservatives - even reactionaries – on the most important public policy issues of the day.
Here is why that’s a problem. For most of the 20th century, the Democratic Party was the party of change. The Republican Party was the party of resistance. Over many years, Democrats developed skills on offense. Republicans developed skills on defense.
Now that the roles are largely reversed, we find the two parties unprepared to assume them. George W. Bush was unprepared to privatize Social Security. And the Democrats in Congress right now are unprepared to resist another trade deal.
Yes...though at times it seems that’s all the difference there is.
Indeed. The courts are now stacked with Obama appointees - which will make a huge difference for a long period of time.
And people like you are to blame for the problems we are having today that will last for many years to come. You’re retired, eh? Thanks a lot from those of us that are younger and will have to live with the consequences.
~ Larry Elder, The Ten Things You Can't Say In America (1998)
There are many reasons, but that is a huge one, you are right.
Just here in PA we had a GOP state legislature pass Voter ID and a GOP governor who signed it, but then the liberal judges stacked up in the courts sabotaged it. Hence, no Voter ID in PA. And that could have had huge benefits for future races here and maybe even impacted the presidential race in 2016 helping someone like Cruz get in the White House.
I can’t help but wonder whether the main article is written by a libertarian, and how many who have posted to this thread are libertarians. Libertarians are cultural Marxists, insurgents on FR, “no difference between the parties” has always been their tactic, the alternative: go libertarian.
I am as much against the gutless RINO’s as all FReepers. The solution, however, is not the libertarian route, but to support the Repubs that aren’t RINO. Granted, there is precious few of them to support.
One man’s opinion.
Don’t blame those who refused to hold their noses and vote for a baby-killing, pusher of homo marriage, creator of romneycare, pro-big government elitist.
Blame the GOP for trying to shove another RINO down our Conservative throats.
While there is overlap - individuals such as McCain and Jeb Bush would fit well into the Democratic party - there are differences such as regarding Israel. None of the Democrats who are or possibly might run for president come close to Cruz or to Walker.
When will you learn that voting for some third party candidate who doesn't any chance to get elected, just like a third party doesn't have a chance to take over.
Wake up
You may want to be the 1927 Yankees playing the old St. Louis Browns or the 1965 Packers playing the Lions, but you play on the day you play with the team you have against the other team as it is.
In other words, you may wonder why they aren't abolishing this, that, and the other thing, but that's not a realistic option, so they aren't doing it. You can try to change that, but don't be too optimistic about the prospects. Major change comes at most once in a generation.
I got about half way through the responses, and gave up. It seems that no one read the article. Sigh.....
This does not surprise me and I don’t blame you. When I posted the article, I expected that most will read the title and nothing else. Unfortunately it happens many times
Is There a Dime’s Worth of Difference between the Two Major Parties?
++++++++
I can’t imagine the Democrat Party producing a Governor Walker, or a Senator Cruz.
+++
See tagline
Only the fringes of the two parties are different, but pretty much the core overlap each other.
Or Corruptocrats. :-)
In principle yes, in practice, no.
Of course there is no difference between the 2 factions of the uniparty. Articles like this are authored in response to the growing realization outside the hallowed threads of FR that our electoral politics are a sham, a game of three card monte where we’ve seen the suckers...and they are us.
Yup. This is agitprop. Once the rubes stop believing in the electoral sham, it becomes much harder to control them. So they’re running pieces like this.
Really Norm. There is a two party system. Ya just gotta believe!
That made me laugh. Thanks.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.