True, although as I have pointed out, the Bush tax cuts don't fully unfold until ten years after enactment, and in the eleventh year they begin to be repealed. It would be nice if the Republicans, now that they control both houses, showed their commitment by making them permanent and bringing them into full operation faster.
And Republicans do deserve credit for voting unanimously against Bill Clinton's tax increase.
However, Bush the Elder and other Republicans have raised taxes. Many of the current tax-increase proposals in the states are coming from Republican governors.
In the last 30 years, no Dem president has fought against Communism and terrorists. Reagan and Bush the younger have.
I love the way that this iw carefully written to skirt the obvious unfarness of saying that "no Dem president has fought against Communism" since JFK, Truman, and even old corrupt LBJ did take some measures, however half-hearted, against Communism. And Bill Clinton never got the chance to be a Cold Warrior -- not that he would have -- as the Cold War was over by then.
So we're essentially talking about Carter. In fairness, he did slap a grain embargo on the Soviets after they invaded Afghanistan, but that is probably the only anti-Communist measure he took. Mostly, he was interested in "dtente" and in getting along with them to make sure that they didn't gain any more ground -- but that was indistinguishable from the policies of Nixon and Ford.
And of course, Nixon began the detente with Red China and Ford was the one who bugged out of Vietnam.
As for fighting terrorism, it was the greatest President in my lifetime who traded arms to the Iranians after they grabbed some Americans. It was a Republican who forced this President's hand by refusing to finish the job in 1991. Which party bugged out after the attack on teh Marine Barracks? Oh, yes. Republicans. Both parties have persisted in the futile effort to get along with the terrorist Arafat. True, Democrats have a bad record on fighting terrorism, but the record of Republicans on this issue is spotty at best.
Though some Supreme Court Justices ( and other judges )have not turned out to be quite what their nominators thought/hoped they'd be, NO Republican president set out, as Dem ones have,to clog the courts with activist faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar lefty ones.
Ah, yes, the standard Republican card -- the Supreme Court argument.
Uh, Earl Warren. William Brennan. Harry Blackmun. And so forth.
Two of the most reliable liberal votes on the Court are Souter and Stevens (who, IMO, is senile and ought to be led off into the sunset.) O'Connor and Kennedy vote with them frequently. All Republican appointees. And Whizzer White, who was a fairly conservative justice, was a Democrat appointee. I would say that Breyer is more conservative than two of the Republican justices, the aforementioned S&S.
Three of Bush's foru appointeees to the Texas Supreme Court while Governor were pro-aborts. At least one of them is reported to be on his list of potential nominees for the Supreme Court when he gets a chance.
Furthermore, it's been reported that the plan is to make O'Connor, not Scalia or Thomas, the next Chief Justice.
W has been open about his desire to appoint a Hispanic to the Supreme Court. I hope that will be someone like Miguel Estrada. But it is just as likely to be Al Gonzales, who would be a disaster. I would oppose a Gonzales nomination, just as I opposed the nominations of O'Connor and Souter (along with the Conservative Caucus and YAF, among others.) Bush seems to be more interested in the politics of the thing than in the substance of his appointments. He has nominated some pretty bad judges and refused to use the recess appointment power to put any really good ones on teh bench.
No GOP president looks to the UN as the arbiter for the world; the Dems do.
Actually, that is why Bush the Elder held back from toppling Saddam in 1991, leaving the job for his son to clean up. The UN told us to stop. Our mandate from the UN was just to free Kuwait, nothing more.
The Dems want us to fund the UN's abortion policies throughout the world. President Bush stopped that.
A small step forward, although I read that he was initially inclined to continue the previous policy. He has done nothing to stop our indirect support of China's "one child" policy.
The Dems are all for massive affirmative action; not so the GOP.
If you will recall, it was a Republican Administration that gave us Affirmative Action. And the EPA as well, FWIW.
President Bush stated his support for "Affirmative Access" during his campaign and he took the Affirmative Action side in the Michigan cases.
I knew, even before I made that wee list, that none of that is " good enough " for you. My replying is an exercise in futility. No matter what anyone says, it's NEVER good enough !
Because you and the other professional Republicans here refuse to pay attention to other things, at least as significant if not more so, that the Republican Party has done in power that could not in any way be described as conservative:
They gave us the largest entitlement program in almost 40 years, a boondoggle estimated at $400 billion, which if previous government estimates are any guide, is low by a factor of about 100.
They enacted a piece of legislation removing our right to criticize any incumbent during the two months before an election.
They enacted a massive Federal education spending bill that blows up Federal spending on education (and take it from me, a Hillsdale guy, Federal spending brings Federal control. That's why my alma mater won't take a dime of Federal money.) And it didn't even include any school choice provisions.
BTW, Federal education spending is patently unconstitutional.
They enacted a massive farm subsidy bill that supposedly was so bloated because it included Federally-covered insurance (where is the Constitutional justification for that?) and then passed a massive insurance bill separately afterwards.
When Red China shot down one of our airplanes and held two of our men captive (briefly), President Bush apologized to the Chinese. They attack us, and we apologize to them. Jeez, that sounds like Democrat policy to me.
They enacted a bill enabling American citizens to be whisked away and held incommunicado for as long as they deem necessary without even the courtesy of a hearing.
They reneged on their promises to make even an effort to abolish the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, and the Chairman of the RNC has made it clear that such ideas are unwelcome in the Republican party.
Instead, in the past 20 years, they have added two Cabinet departments! That is a really good way to promote smaller government!
They reneged on their promises to defund the NEA, NPR, and other government funded centers for leftist agitation. They never even made any real effort.
This Administration imposed steel tarrifs, which harm our economy, and only revoked them after the WTO told them to.
They refuse to make even a token effort to defund and withdraw from the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, the UN, and other anti-American institutions.
This is only a partial list. It's just what I could come up with from memory. I can find much more.
The Republicans do little more for us than the Democrats do and they do about as much to hurt our cause and our principles. How do we advance our cause by supporting this kind of a party?
It's time that we came together to build a genuinely conservative party in this country, since the Republicans have long since ceased being one. And I speak as a onetime YR. The Republicans were formed in the 1850s because tehWhig Party had ceased to take a stand on any issues that mattered. Well, the Republicans did such a good job of replacing the Whigs that they have become the Whigs.
The Whigs need to be replaced again.
I'm not certain I'll be voting for who you're voting for, but I'm certain I'm not voting for Bush.
Gridlock was better than what we have now.
Thus, I am reposting the specifics because we need to support solutions as they are offered and stop perpatuating the problems through financial or ballot support.
Because you and the other professional Republicans here refuse to pay attention to other things, at least as significant if not more so, that the Republican Party has done in power that could not in any way be described as conservative:
They gave us the largest entitlement program in almost 40 years, a boondoggle estimated at $400 billion, which if previous government estimates are any guide, is low by a factor of about 100.
They enacted a piece of legislation removing our right to criticize any incumbent during the two months before an election.
They enacted a massive Federal education spending bill that blows up Federal spending on education (and take it from me, a Hillsdale guy, Federal spending brings Federal control. That's why my alma mater won't take a dime of Federal money.) And it didn't even include any school choice provisions.
BTW, Federal education spending is patently unconstitutional.
They enacted a massive farm subsidy bill that supposedly was so bloated because it included Federally-covered insurance (where is the Constitutional justification for that?) and then passed a massive insurance bill separately afterwards.
When Red China shot down one of our airplanes and held two of our men captive (briefly), President Bush apologized to the Chinese. They attack us, and we apologize to them. Jeez, that sounds like Democrat policy to me.
They enacted a bill enabling American citizens to be whisked away and held incommunicado for as long as they deem necessary without even the courtesy of a hearing.
They reneged on their promises to make even an effort to abolish the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, and the Chairman of the RNC has made it clear that such ideas are unwelcome in the Republican party.