You are starting to get the picture. The Repub's used to be split into 2 factions. There were your standard religious/social conservatives and then there were the "Country Club" republicans. These latter were what used to be called "mercantilists." These were the politicians that passed laws to benefit certain companies at the expense of others. Or, as Dubya did with steel, pass tariffs to protect American companies, which raises prices for the consumer.These 2 factions were pretty split and used to fight for control of the party.
Farm subsidies, milk subsidies, etc., all that federal money that goes to industry, are all part of the same system. A classic historical example are jitneys, which were small buses that would go around and pick people up and drop them off wherever they wanted to go, like a shared limo. The big city bus and trolley companies (which were privately owned in those days) didn't like the competition so they got them outlawed. Jitneys were too successful. (In just a matter of years they went from nothing to 47,000 jitneys.) They remain illegal to this day. In the few cities where they have been legalized, one in Colorado I think, they have been extraordinarily successful. The whole battle over "public transit" with "light rail" and Bus Rapid Transit systems and all that is the result of over regulation of taxis and outlawing jitneys. All to protect certain unions and companies.
In 1980 Ronald Reagan managed to join the religious/social conservatives and Country Club Republicans into single party for the first time. This brought in the conservative "Reagan Democrats" who couldn't stomach the leftward drift of the Dems. This is the Repubs as we have them today. The Dems still remember and use the rhetoric of the old Mercantilistic system, which is why the cries of "Halliburton, Halliburton" and to a certain extent it is true. Reagan's Secretary of State George Shultz had a revolving door between goverment and Bechtel Corp.
The "dirty little secret" of business is this "mercantilist" faction that uses the system to exclude competition and get corporate welfare. The top 10 major Ag corporations get 75% of the billions in farm subsidies that are supposed to support the "small farmer." And both parties are in collusion to support it. Which is why, when you ask "Why doesn't the GOP . . .do whatever? " the GOP doesn't act to stop many of things that you think they would. They are part of problem in many ways.
Another example is how federal spending has literally shot through the roof under Dubya. Ronald Reagan vetoed some 43 or so bills his first term, and Dubya ain't vetoed a single one yet. I can't tell you how disappointing this is.
This is where the Libertarian Party should come in and play a part but they focus way too much on the Drug War and prostitution, and thereby lose all credibility.
The problem is, how much worse things would be under Kerry and the Rats. There is really no choice on who to vote for.
My first instinct when GW came to the political stage was to look with a jaundiced eye toward more of the same elitist philosophy. I am very leary of the Tri-lateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. And I am definitely unhappy with the way the border situation has been handled. How is it that the people who actually make it on the ticket get annointed? Isn't it the very same MSM who winds up telling us who should get the nod?