Posted on 02/22/2004 8:05:00 PM PST by FairOpinion
WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) - The White House has been reaching out to conservative groups to quell a rebellion over government spending and budget deficits, hoping to shore up President George W. Bush's political base in an election year.
Conservative leaders who have taken part in private White House meetings in recent weeks said on Friday officials have promised to all but freeze non-defense spending, and assured them Bush will follow through on his threat to veto major highway legislation if Congress refuses to scale it back.
The price tag on a six-year highway and transportation bill stalled in the House of Representatives is $375 billion while a Senate highway bill calls for spending $318 billion. The White House has proposed a $256 billion measure.
"Bush has been very attentive to the critique from the right," said Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a politically powerful conservative group -- offering tentative praise where once he talked openly of a brewing rebellion.
But if the White House does not follow through, said Heritage Foundation vice president for government relations, Michael Franc, "all bets are off."
"This is not something you can address with a handshake, a pat on the back and an invitation to the White House. You address it by actions," he added.
The White House is used to being attacked by Democrats, but it came as something of a shock when fellow Republicans broke ranks over growth in government spending, hurting Bush at a time when his job approval numbers were already falling.
Conservatives from the Cato Institute criticized the president for overseeing a nearly 25 percent surge in spending over the last three years -- the fastest pace since the Johnson administration of the mid-1960s.
Others singled out his failure to lay out concrete plans to reduce the federal budget deficit, projected at a record $521 billion this year. Even some of Bush's Republican allies in the House warned of a backlash against his budget priorities.
In what one administration official called a "concerted effort," senior White House officials have been meeting with Republicans in Congress to smooth over their differences.
Joel Kaplan, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, has been meeting with conservative groups, an aide said. The effort may be paying off.
"Stung by a lot of the criticism from the right, Bush is going to be steadfast about sticking to his spending targets," said Moore, who warned in January that a rebellion among conservatives was brewing.
Now Moore says, "They clearly are trying to reach out. I think the complaints of conservatives have been heeded."
Heritage analyst Brian Riedl once described the mood of conservatives as "angry."
Now Riedl says, "I think the White House is definitely moving in the right direction," though he added, "There's a lot of work ahead of them."
William Niskanen, the chairman of the libertarian Cato Institute who advised former President Ronald Reagan, said he has personally not seen much of an outreach effort. "We'll have to see" what the White House does, he said.
If the court turns, then we may as well take the Constitution and destroy it.
It will be over.
Any ideas to the contrary just won't stand up.
Seriously, if it's Kerry, his voting records is MORE liberal than Kennedy, and as for Edwards, the trial lawyer.........well......you can only guess.
Assault RIFLES have been banned without a class III Since FDR was in office.
As for the so called "Assault Weapons" ban, you don't know if it will get out or not. And with a gun lawsuit ban languishing in the Senate with a fillabuster, there's certainly a chance it will be let out.
And that's my line in the sand. If it passes I do what I have to do.
The shoe doesn't fit, yet that is insulting, stupid and sick! Stop it!!! Haven't you heard? People that go around making blanket insults to conservatives on conservative websites are seldom taken seriously and are kin to mosquitoes in their power to annoy, their only joy!!!
Respectfully, I ask why you say that. Looks like going all in, hoping for a belly-buster straight draw at the river to me.
My guess is that Bush will turn even MORE "compassionate" in a second term.
If the White House is wrong, they need to hear it.
If the White House is right, the country won't last another ten years irrespective of who wins in November.
Clinton had two terms. The majority of the damage done was in the second.
No matter how much it did to galvanize the Republican party, just what did that galvanization do? What good did it do for the country?
The only thing that I can think of is that it helped Bush to win and be in the right place at the right time.
He deserves a second term. We owe him that, no matter how many feathers he may have ruffled.
He is a do-person and do people make others angry often.
People who do nothing don't have that problem. That is why you made that statement. It is because Clinton did nothing!
Let me rephrase: A Bush I second term would have been worse than a Klinton term. But, just one answer to your question is welfare reform. Another is the damned near clean sweep of governor's offices by Republicans in many states, including Texas, Michigan, Ohio. Neither of those phenomena would have occured in a Bush I second term.
I keep harping on this issue because our country and its form of government were made for a people who were wise enough to understand the truth. If we cease to be a people who understand the truth, we will not be fit for the kind of government that the Founding Fathers gave us. The truth is that the assault weapons ban is a bad law. The truth is that banning these guns does not make us safer. Unfortunately, we have a president who isn't standing tall to proclaim this truth. By failing to proclaim this truth, he is helping those who are making the citizens of this country less fit to enjoy the liberties that our Founding Fathers gave us. Yes, we need to win this election in the short term. We also need to win the long term battle to remain the kind of people for whom the Founding Fathers designed this country. If we fail to win in the long term, the short term victory will be hollow.
Why does it upset you so much that people remind those in power of the need to stand against a bad law?
Good night, sleep tight and pleasant dreams to you
Here's a wish and a prayer that every dream comes true
And now 'til we meet again
Adios, au revior, auf weidersehen!
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