The Great Republican Role-Reversal Gambit

MSNBC ^ | 5:53 p.m. ET March 16, 2005 | Howard Fineman

[w6ai5q37b]

No spending opportunity left behind

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Howard Fineman
Newsweek
Updated: 5:53 p.m. ET March 16, 2005


March 16 - Here’s a quick quiz on political labels for you junkies out there. Of the two major political parties, which one is spending money like water, creating new welfare entitlements, rapidly expanding the power of the federal government and launching idealistic wars of liberation around the globe?

For 60 years—from the dawn of the New Deal in 1933 to the advent of Hillary Healthcare in 1993—the answer was the Democratic Party. But 1993 also was the year George W. Bush launched his national career (by running for governor of Texas). Now, 12 years later, we see the result: the Republicans are the party of deficit spending, entitlement expansion, Washington aggrandizement and Wilsonian crusades. They are presiding over the most vigorous enlargement of federal power and military involvement abroad since Lyndon Johnson unfurled the Great Society and plunged headlong into Vietnam.

Maybe there’s a big-government growth hormone in the artesian wells of Texas. Or maybe, as the writer Flannery O’Connor said, everything that rises must converge: meaning that every American governing party ultimately operates the same way to amplify its own political reach.

[w6ai5q37b]

Lately quite a few Democrats have scored higher on the Conservative index than many of their Republican peers in Congress however this is primarily because the Democrats vote "nay" on big-spending Republican bills because the spending is not great enough, especially with regard to "social programs."

[The Old Hoosier]

I'd be wary of using the Birchers' magazine ratings to measure conservatism.

[Prost1]

Another example of a dead-end Liberal who prefers spending all the deficit on entitlements, not infrastructure or defense or freedom.

Also, in order to get spending bills through Congress, even with a majority, it still requires, yes, Pork. And who are the claiments, the ones who have been there the longest, both Dems and Reps.

I usually ignore Fineman. He is MSM!

[smoothsailing]

Poor Howard Fineman, he just cant stick with a consistent reason for hating
Republicans, but hate them he must.

[cripplecreek]

I don't measure conservatism based on budgetary issues. I measure conservatism on right to life issues, personal freedom issues and free market issues etc. Granted the republicans aren't doing the greatest job on those issues but they're still a whole heck of a lot better than the socialists...er democrats.


Over the next 4 years I expect to see the democrats and liberals trying to convince us they they are the conservative party. Fortunately Ive been around farms enough to know when somebody's shoveling manure.

[coconutt2000]

It costs money to fix what the Democrats went and broke.

[Muleteam1]

Well! This makes me want to vote Democrat. Not.

Muleteam1