[An Old Marine]

Hear, Hear! I would however move tort reform higher on the list of things to acheive. First it'd be a huge boost to business in general and go a long way to healing our issues with affordable medical care. Its estimated that 30 cents out of every dollar spent on medical care goes to some attorney or defendant. Second it'd put a big hole in one of the main revenue sources of the Democrats. Third it'd lower insurance costs for all of us.

[ROTB]

>Renewable energy. If we intend on drilling ANWR, we need to
>have an offset that demonstrates to younger voters and
>suburban women that we are not oil-obsessed.

Bike lanes along every freeway.

[wizardoz]

Let's not forget gun control.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Private social-security accounts top the high-risk, high-reward column. In my view, they're a risk worth taking. The societal and political payoff of ushering millions of Americans into the investor class is immense. I have heard all of the reasons not to proceed in this area, but am convinced that the Renaissance it will create is worth the risk of failure. It is true that transitional costs will need to be dealt with

In fact, private SS accounts do not cost anything in reality. What they would do is simply recognize, for accounting purposes, a cost - and unfunded liability - which already exists in the Social Security Trust Fund.

By law, the SSTF is invested in "safe" government bonds - but what makes those bonds "safe" is the assumption that the government will, by hook or by crook, get or print the dollars necessary to redeem them. The experience of the boom triggered by the Kemp-Roth tax rate cut demonstrated, however, the limit on the efficacy of tax increases. So a government bond, which is simply an instruction to the government to pony up money from the treasury, is not backed up by the government's ability to raise revenue by raising tax rates.

Therefore the government must provide for future paybacks from some other source than itself. The government could in principle merely invest the money in the stock market, but that would promptly give the government ownership of too much of private employers - and produce the worst effects of socialism. The solution is private accounts in which individuals invest SS money in the real, private economy. And it also has the virtue of producing a true lockbox for the money, in that it would be exceedingly difficult politically for the government to ever raid it.

[thegreatbeast]

The best way to play hardball is to squeeze these Democrats by recruiting challengers ASAP.

This sounds like sage advice. Gawd, if we could only get that senile old bastard Robert Byrd out of there. Or finish my senator's (Kennedy) long reign. That would be beautiful.

[Unam Sanctam]

First, we need to ignore the liberal Democrats. They have wandered into a cultural and electoral cul-de-sac and seem hell bent on staying there. We should give them their wish and their space by avoiding long, vitriolic encounters. The Democrats have chosen to be the pessimists among an optimistic people. The more conservative Republicans govern and speak to America's can-do spirit, the more pessimistic the Democrats will become. Our strongest weapons are our ideas and our smiles.

I really needed to read this. Being in a blue state, I have been getting really depressed over the level of anti-Christian and anti-conservative vitriol that the libs have been indulging in.