Posted on 01/23/2009 8:40:54 AM PST by dbz77
I'm already weary of members of the Republican Party and other conservatives doing little else but throwing rocks at the new Obama administration. And that's coming from someone who helped build the party before many of today's pundits were learning to speak.
Barack Obama is president. Get over it, and start coming up with new ideas and counter-ideas of your own, instead of making hateful or smart-alecky remarks just to sell books or attract attention.
Take Joe Lowery as a subject of right-wing grievance. (I've known him for years, and he has actually helped Republican candidates on many occasions.) As part of the inauguration's benediction, Lowery recited an out-of-date and out-of-step little ditty from the civil rights days. Part of it dismissed whites as morally lacking.
So what? He's in his late 80s and isn't representative of anything but the past.
And the fact that President Obama had to retake the oath of office because the Chief Justice messed it up is interesting, but only that. It doesn't stand up to a claim that the Obama presidency is somehow illegitimate.
Listen up, Republicans and conservatives: Your party and your movement only rise when they produce new ideas. Ronald Reagan did it in 1980 with his approaches to things like taxation and fighting the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
And the Republicans who took over Congress in 1994 did so by unveiling a specific litany of government reforms.
By way of practicing what I preach -- however navely or haltingly -- allow me to outline the rudiments of a free-market approach to start getting us out of this economic slough we are in. This idea might at least help make a dent in the bailing out of our financial institutions without simply throwing good money after bad.
Start with a simple premise: We know that beautiful foreclosed homes in places like, say, Florida have subsequently been marked down in value (and by using an idiotic accounting method, but never mind).
Knowing that someday their full values will return, wouldn't you love to be able to buy some of those homes at dirt-cheap prices, and simply wait for their values to return or even appreciate? Ditto for strip malls, office complexes, hotels, and on and on.
The obvious problem, of course, is that most people in America don't have the resources to afford big bargains during this down time.
But now ask yourself this: Would you rather invest in a big-name company that could see its value plummet, or in a collection of assets that have reached rock bottom, but were once quite valuable?
Clear and simple, there'd be little downside and much potential in waiting for the windfall of these assets to return to value.
And now my idea: Why should these billions of dollars of allegedly bad loans, tied to greatly diminished assets held by financial institutions, be purchased by our tax money rather than by a public eager to someday reap potential financial rewards?
In most past recessions, the bounceback on assets -- often long-delayed -- can be in the double-digit percentiles. Would you not buy a "share of stock" in the "corporation" holding these assets? Maybe 100 shares? Perhaps many more if there was liquidity to spare?
I sure would, and in part because, just like during World War II with war bonds, I would be investing in helping to fund a fight that is critical to our nation's survival.
Equally important, I realize that I'm going to fund it anyway, if only through tax payments that I will never see again.
I think I'd rather pitch in for Uncle Sam by having the opportunity to see the "corporation" holding these assets gain substantial value in future years.
This proposal probably has a million holes in it. Readers, feel free to help me find them.
But let's at least get a dialogue going. Throwing rocks at a president with a 70 percent approval rating won't get America's entrepreneurial engines running again. Let's leave the venom to those who make their living milking it from their own fangs.
Riiiight...
Only "throwing rocks" at conservatives can do that!
This is well said. I’m sick of the nit-picking and the failure to lead, to espouse conservative principles, and to stand for something, on the part of the Republicans.
Who the hell is Matt Towery. He built the party? He doesn’t even merit a Wikipedia entry.
“This proposal probably has a million holes in it. Readers, feel free to help me find them.”
A fussy scolding, then a valuable financial lecture—”Buy low, sell high!”
What’s not to like?
Throwing rocks is justified when Hussein just undid everything W did to keep us safe since 9/11
I think this guy misses the point of the bailouts. He seems to think that the government is using tax dollars to help the economy recover. I don’t know where he gets such an idea. The point of the bailouts is to use tax dollars to buy future votes for Democrats. Thus, his idea, while it might seem to have some merit, is a non-starter.
Yup this is the only recourse left to us not that the MSM has subverted the political process in the US.
The whole system has been shamelessly hijacked and Conservatism will be made to look even more blase and outdated in the next four years.
The image of Conservatism has to be rehabilitated... (sort of like answering the ‘Do you still beat your wife?’ question). However, with the MSM firmly planting itself in the Liberal camp... Conservatives will have to be satisfied with throwing stones for now.
I think the liberals would prefer that we threw shoes.
I disagree: yes, we do have to have ideas. But don’t think that “throwing rocks” doesn’t work. That was PRECISELY the dem strategy since 2001, and it worked perfectly. In fact, it only took them 6 years of “throwing rocks” to destroy Bush, unseat the Republicans, and elect a president without ANY ideas. So not only is it possible, it is a good strategy.
Gosh, I wish they’d actually engage in some constructive critique. The closest they’re coming now is mildly suggesting that the bailout is too big and not properly targeted.
They win on differences — both negative (Democrat ideas stink like last week’s fish and always have) and positive (Republicans have good ideas and here they are). One without the other is worthless.
I am sick to the death of pussy whipped Republicans.
I think this guy misses the point of the bailouts. He seems to think that the government is using tax dollars to help the economy recover. I don’t know where he gets such an idea. The point of the bailouts is to use tax dollars to buy future votes for Democrats. Thus, his idea, while it might seem to have some merit, is a non-starter.Where are all the people who are protesting the bailout? I remember that the first proposed bailout drew massive protests.
I about exploded. The MAIN solution is to keep the Dems from doing what they want to do. That is by far our NUMBER ONE PRIORITY. We can't begin to implement things if we allow them to revisit the Great Society here.
Not really. It's not the only recourse. It's one of, at worst, two. The other one is your vote. "Throwing stones" is fun and helps people keep their sanity when their party is out of power, but that's it. It's not a plan.
And the media likes the bailouts because they're hoping to "git summathat".
If we had an opposition party, perhaps a case could be made in the public forum for why spending trillions of dollars -- which we don't have -- is a risky gambit. But the GOP rejected that course of action back in September.
“I’m already weary of members of the Republican Party and other conservatives doing little else but throwing rocks at the new Obama administration.”
I’m not. You have to show that the Lord Obama and his cult followers are fallible.
I'm right where I've always been. America is slipping over the edge, because she has let go of her founding principles. The founding principles aren't even taught anymore, so who can be surprised if people who were never taught them don't believe them or know what they are?
I don't have to "come up with new ideas". I have to keep preaching principle, and when the conceit of the moment fails to deliver what it promised I have to explain, based on principle, why it didn't work and why it was never going to work.
Throwing rocks at a president with a 70 percent approval rating won't get America's entrepreneurial engines running again.
I'm supposed to avoid criticizing someone just because he's popular? Is that what passes for punditry at Townhall these days?
Does he mean as opposed to the cooperation and love the democraps showed to that evil hitler Bush and his “failed administration”?
However, that doesn't mean that Republicans should bend over and not criticize Obama either.
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