Bush reaches out to conservatives to quell revolt

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.

President appoints District Court judges as well.

Federal District Judges. The Homo marriages are being played out in State Courts.

If you think what's happening in SF is something wait until a democrat starts appointing higher court judges who will put these guys to shame.

So, if the Liberal Elite (that's the people who are really in charge, not the figureheads that appear to be) want someone to be appointed all they have to do is appear to be pushing someone far more liberal and conservatives will rally to the support of the one the Elite really want appointed because he is not as bad as the one being publicly promoted? Interesting. It's an old, and quite effective, negotiation strategy called good cop/bad cop. It's also called the lesser of evils sstrategy. Conservatives seem to be particularly vulnerable to it.

Ask them how they like the judicial branch approving same sex marriages. Ask them how they'd like a Supreme Court making those kinds of decisions for the next 20 years.

Without about 62 Republicans in the Senate, the Supreme Court is going to be locked out from getting a true conservative even with a fight. (not that anybody is retiring soon) My guess is Bush will compromise with a moderate Latino like Gonzales, and woopty do! Whats the point?

Having said that, the judiciary (lower courts especially) is the one thing keeping ME on the farm. But if there are 1000 guys like me out there, 200 might sit out the election, or find something else to do that day. On many days this administration seems like Lyndon Johnsons.. Guns AND Butter, the heck with the taxpayer of the future!

The prescription drug bill is not monstrous compared to the one the Dems want instead. They are blocking the administrations' explanatory ads, which emphasize that the program is voluntary, it offers choices that are paid for by anyone except the indigent elderly and they only get a $600/yr benefit that will save money by dealing w/conditions before they become something that requires an ER admission and lifesaving interventions in the OR and ICU.

The Republicans in the House, acting under the POTUS' direction, led by Delay, are in process of slashing the budget as much as possible, while the Dems have submitted 2 versions of the Highway bill that are so large the POTUS has threatened a veto. The budget is IN PROCESS and not finalized, yet. POTUS proposes and Congress disposes.

The immigration bill is also a proposal and one or more bills similar to it and in some cases more stringent, are making their way thru Congress. It is a PROPOSAL, not yet enacted in any way (except that deportations are being negotiated w/Mexico, since we need their permission before taking their nationals deep inside their nation) and there is good reason to believe that if Tancredo's bill can make it thru the Congress, POTUS will sign it.

AWB will not, according to the critters, even make it thru the Congress, yet many FReepers are calling it the *line in the sand* if it is renewed. This is definitely premature and ignores every Republican Congressman asserting it will not even come up in this session.

All these proposals (and the signed Medicare bill which is a step towards privatization) are about the only way open to BEGIN dismantling the 70-year-old socialist regime this President inherited.

If the Dems take control of Congress, if GWB doesn't get reelected, we will have full blown amnesty (see Kerry's 5-years-and-citizenship proposal), A full-blown single-payer monstrosity /no choice and no payment and no copays,a budget full of targeted anti-business tax laws along w/inflated social spending instead of a proposed 2% rise that the Congress as constituted right now, is working to slash to 1% or less. We will negotiate w/our enemies who will not honor their own signatures and who will marginalize us and still attack us and eventually erode our sovereignty via the UN.

The angst and the screaming are definitely premature. They are even somewhat paranoid. This position is being fed by the media and the conservatives are being rolled just as they were when the Dems rolled Bush I over *no new taxes* and conservatives (including myself) revolted and voted for Perot and got 8 years of Clinton.

The administration has solicited conservatives' concerns via a questionnaire that has been dissed and dismissed by many on this thread, some w/out even reading it. I call that premature.

You can laugh all the way to control of all of the government: Congress/WH/Judiciary and the media by the fascists. We will all lose our 2nd amendment rights, pay thru the nose in taxes, be overrun by non-assimilated immigrants and be stuck in a national health plan that provides poor service for fewer people at more cost and have only government program jobs.

But you have done one thing for the rest of us: you have motivated many of us to work our butts off to reelect the best President in 25 years. If you won't vote for GWB, then each of us simply has to get out there and convince another 5-10 people who didn't vote last time or who voted for Gore
to reelect GWB and make your temper tantrum irrelevant.

Our system is one of negotiation. No President can force thru overwhelming structural and process changes by himself. The more I read the complaints of the far right, 3rd party purists, the more I begin to think they prefer dictatorship to democracy. Politics is war by other means. Some of the positions taken by hard-line conservatives often sound like a call to Civil War II.

That would make the left so happy, it would make the celebration after Clinton's election look like a wake.

IMO, it is vital to continue the work begun by this administration in dismantling the travesty the Left has made of this country. We can disagree and we can fight over the details later. We will not have that opportunity if we do the work of the left for them by staying home, only voting down ticket or voting unelectable 3rd party.

rofl. Is that a White House press release?

..that are so large the POTUS has threatened a veto.

They must REALLY be huge! Well, I guess at 3.5 years his virginity needs to be taken.

POTUS proposes and Congress disposes.

Exactly. That's what makes many so angry--those darned proposals.

The angst and the screaming are definitely premature.

Well, as I pointed out, the little rug roaches emanating from the Congress and the President aren't premature. They are alive and growing. Just when would you suggest angst and screaming?

The substance of your argument is that (1) the prescription drug bill is not monstrous, which is absurd; and (2) everything else is just a proposal, so we should have not "angst" and "screaming." This is getting to be fun to watch the squirming.

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