Posted on 02/12/2004 11:28:55 PM PST by JohnHuang2
Will Bush survive attacks from the right?
© 2004 Newspaper Enterprise Assn.
The disgruntled mutterings about President Bush in conservative circles are getting too loud to ignore. From National Review to The Heritage Foundation, not to mention such libertarian redoubts as The Cato Institute, the grumbling is reaching impressive levels. It doesn't (yet) amount to outright rebellion. The protesters are still on board for November; few of them are seriously threatening to stay home on Election Day and let John Kerry waltz into the White House. But it is fair to say that, in the opinion of many serious people, the integrity of the conservative movement as we've known it is at stake.
Just how far has President Bush strayed from the conservative mainstream? Last September in the National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru counted the ways:
"Bush has increased the federal role in education, imposed tariffs on steel and lumber, increased farm subsidies, OK'd federal regulations on campaign finance and corporate accounting and expanded the national-service program President Clinton began. Since Sept. 11, he has also raised defense spending, given new powers to law enforcement, federalized airport security and created a new Cabinet department for homeland security. No federal programs have been eliminated, nor has Bush sought any such thing. More people are working for the federal government than at any point since the end of the Cold War."
And that was even before Bush pushed through Congress a Medicare reform law that is the greatest new entitlement in several decades.
Bush's defenders have just about given up pretending that he is implementing traditional conservative principles. Instead, some of them, like Daniel Casse in the February issue of Commentary, have begun arguing that Bush has offered "a very bold, and very ambitious, reordering of conservative priorities." He cites Michael Barone's contention that Bush has replaced "the conservative touchstones of small government and spending cuts with the bolder, more inspirational ideas of choice and accountability" – to which Casse would add support "not for big government but for strong government."
All this may well be true, and it is only fair to add that many of Bush's steps in the direction of bigger government (notably the Medicare and education bills) include reforms that, if they can be built upon, should greatly improve the performance of those programs. In addition, the federal deficit at the end of 2003, though dollar-wise the largest in history, represented only 4.2 percent of GDP – by no means a record.
Still, a widely circulated Office of Management and Budget chart showing the percentage increases in discretionary domestic spending reveals just how far President Bush has wandered from fiscal discipline:
– Lyndon Johnson, 1965-69, 4.3 percent
– Richard Nixon, 1970-75, 6.8 percent
– Gerald Ford, 1976-77, 8.0 percent
– Jimmy Carter, 1978-81, 2.0 percent
– Ronald Reagan, 1982-89, 1.3 percent
– George Bush, Sr., 1990-93, 4.0 percent
– Bill Clinton, 1994-2001, 2.5 percent
– George W. Bush, 2002-04, 8.2 percent
Historically, one of the chief things the Republican party and the conservative movement have had going for them is the public belief that they are financially more responsible than their opponents and less inclined to expand government. If Bush squanders those assets in pursuit of "bolder, more inspirational ideas," he will bear a heavy responsibility for the future fates of the party and the movement.
No wonder many conservatives are ill at ease. There is probably still time – though just barely – for Bush to make policy corrections that will signal his continued allegiance to the basic principles of traditional conservatism. Unless he does, he may win the next election at the price of presiding over the political destruction of the conservative movement.
First, vote out Democrats and keep voting them out until they are all gone. They won't be back.
Second, support real conservative candidates for the House and Senate, and in state and local elections.
The boomer and older liberals are decreasing in number with each passing day. This bloc of voters is already less than one fourth of the eligible voters. There are not enough younger liberals to bring their voting numbers up to half the voting population except in the large liberal cities.
Total boomer and older eligible voters will be outnumbered by Gen-X and Gen-Y eligible voters before 2008.
Younger voters nationwide are trending more conservative than the boomers and older generation.
Younger liberals are less likely to vote than the younger eligible voters who are working and have families. As they get older fewer of them will be able to afford to stay liberal like their boomer predecessors.
Younger voters are not happy with high taxes, burdensome payroll deductions for programs that will never benefit their generation.
Younger voters are not pleased with the decisions the boomers have made over the last four decades, and their perception and the reality is that liberal boomers are predominantly to blame for the damage.
When Democrats disappear into the dustbin of history, the Republicans will by default be the party of the left and they will hopefully be pulled back toward the center because their competition will be a party of younger, more conservative voters.
Which Founder are you channeling?
Yes.
Next?
LOL!
I hope you won't mind if we hang on a bit longer. I know we are a burden and all but damn kid it was either bommers or geezers that brought a fine specimen such as you into this terrible world.
Don't talk such utter nonsense/extrapolate upon compromise in relationship to safety.
The LP has been around for what........some 30 years or so? They have yet to win one seat in either House ( Ron Paul doesn't count; he lost running as a Libertarian and has only been able to win as a REPUBLICAN! )or the presidency. No states has a Libertarian Governor.
The Libertarian Party is closer to the GREEN PARTY, than to the GOP!
Who were you here, before you were banned and/or who are you here, ALL of your nics, now? This song and dance of your's is tired, old,familiar,and banal.
And here's just a wee bit of common sense...the Libertarian Party is not only a sick jokes, its presidential candidates won't ever even garner as many votes as that cretin Ross Perot did. ;^)
Nor can the stubborn malcontents remain free when they promote giving up what is left of their freedoms in helping "progressives" replace the sitting POTUS who is patiently working on turning the tides of liberal progressiveness in a slow but sure fashion.
A common election year event.
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