I, Heretic

And sorry if I haven't articulated it, but I'm not talking just a blanket rebuild. Of course that defeats the purpose, as the self-sustaining nature of their socialist programs is built into the program. We have to retool the program, so it still serves the same purpose, it just does it our way (which is the way to ending the program all together). The program still exists, it still provides the same service, it just has more constraints and time limits, so that in the end, it doesn't exist anymore. In other words, we rebuild the program to actually work.

Will you please explain exactly what steps the administration is taking or planning on taking to start 'winning the hearts and minds while changing the system'? All I see is spending, I don't see any changing going on.

How long are we supposed to spend before we 'win the hearts and minds'?

They spend, just the same, but the hearts and minds change when the people see actual results. Then as the progams are ending, the people realize that they can do it on their own.

I think Bush is far more forward thinking that people have given him credit for (myself included).

Unless Rule #1 is "Less money will be spent on this stuff this year than last year, and so on next year, and so on..." they you ain't a fiscal conservative. Period.

You seem to be suffering from the delusion that either (a) you are King, and can rule by decree; or (b) fiscal conservatives are a voting majority in the United States.

Neither of those things is true, with the consequence that no matter how loudly you proclaim the virtues of smaller government and less spending, you are doomed to witness an ever-growing, ever-more-expensive government.

For how long have conservatives been calling for spending reductions and smaller government? In what year has the government ever once gotten smaller or spent less? Do you a connection here? Have you heard the saying that doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result, is insane?

I agree that it is difficult to see long-term wisdom when the short term is painful. However, many things in life are like this. This is how Bush works. He likes things that take 30 years and produce earth-changing results. Tweaking water policy to save 500 salmon a year is a Clinton program. A Bush program seeks to remake the Middle East, or end welfare dependency in the United States. None of that "small ball" stuff for him.

Don't be a "small ball" player. Conservatives have been screaming about spending since the Constitution was ratified. All they've gotten for it is leviathan government. Do you really think that screaming some more is going to do any good?

bookmark. Overall, I agree.

Nick~
Glad you're here! Hope you don't mind my posting your article...I also made a podcast of it, it is so brilliant (imo). I certainly gave credit where it is due, and only just uploaded it, so I can take it down if you desire.

I hope my wife doesn't read this. She'll think she's a genius for running up $40,000 in credit card debt.

I will suggest that President Bush understands money better than any President we have ever had. He understands it better than most economists. He understands it better than our illustrious pundits. President Bush understands money the way a financier understands money. He sees it as a force or a power that one squirts at the world to make the world change. He sees it as a weapon.

I really doubt it. Is it just more "throwing money at problems"?

Thanks for writing this Nick. I saw a reference to it the other day and I'm glad to find the whole thing posted on its own.

There's another way to visualize "big government". It's a club; a Louisville Slugger on steroids. And the Democrats have been beating us over the head with this club for the last 70 years. Now that we're the one's holding the club, what do we want to do? Break it! This is, of course, stupid. The first thing the Dems will do is make another club. And then they'll spend the next 70 years beating up on us with their new club. So what should we do? Take that club, beat them to death with it and then break it.

As a libertarian, the last thing I want is more government to "help" me. I'll be honest, I was one of those getting queasy about the rising spending and debt. However, I had been taking the attitude "Aw screw it; we're at war. We'll settle the books later." I hadn't considered the thought of using the Left's spending apparatus as a weapon against them; or that it might serve to fulfill more conservative/libertarian ends.

Good response to Nick's post.

What is being proposed, IMHO, is the backdraft theory. Sometimes it is necessary to create another fire in order to put out the original her raging, wild, out-of-control fire. Of course, there are risks involved.

Like most here at FR, I believe in a smaller government. However, 40+ years of liberal laws and social baggage have created a snake-pit. In the long run, the costs of eliminating the tentacles, one by one, are higher -- much higher and with the risks (not to mention social/civil chaos) are increased - whereas a start-up overlay will have the effect of creating a bigger can to cage the worms.

This is good.

This thread reminds me of a campaign speech by the LP presidential candidate Harry Browne. He talks about how, if elected, he'll dismantle this bureaucracy or that department, abolish this tax or that subsidy, that he'll roll back a laundry list of Federal programs, followed by the punchline "and then I'll break for lunch." The crowd is going nuts. They're cheering and applauding; but not one person in the room realizes that speeches like that will never win an election.

The average American voter doesn't want some scary, screaming loon to take a meat-ax to the Government. It doesn't matter how sound the argument is for doing so or how good the result will be. Do you remember how Mr. Newt was raked over the coals for his "wither on the vine" comment about Medicare? He wasn't even talking about reducing the program. He only wanted to foster a replacement for Medicare. He was talking about a gradual change over the course of years. People heard "wither in the vine" and freaked. They've grown up with Government taking care of them. BB loves them and they know it. It will takes years to convince them of the opposite. Nick's "shining city in a bowl" is one way to bring about that transformation.

It took years to get into that snake pit; it will take years to get out.

Redcloak -- you've got that EXACTLY right. On all the points you wrote in that post.

When President Bush won 2000, there were many conservs screaming for him to simply axe the NEA and pub ed. Well, as I pointed out... "okay, let's axe the NEA and pub ed.. and tell me how many teachers you plan to employ in your own company to offset the jobloss and economic chaos? Going to pay more taxes to feed and house their children?

I was called a spoilsport... lol!

I know some who think just "chopping off" something will eleviate their own personal stress.. but it usually doesn't work that way.....

From the Opinion Journal today:

That Was Fast http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/11/politics/11poverty.html?ei=5090&en=f4277df5c2847789&ex=1286683200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

"Liberal Hopes Ebb in Post-Storm Poverty Debate" reads a New York Times headline today. Jason DeParle reports:

*** QUOTE ***

As Hurricane Katrina put the issue of poverty onto the national agenda, many liberal advocates wondered whether the floods offered a glimmer of opportunity. The issues they most cared about--health care, housing, jobs, race--were suddenly staples of the news, with President Bush pledged to "bold action."

But what looked like a chance to talk up new programs is fast becoming a scramble to save the old ones. . . .

"We've had a stunning reversal in just a few weeks," said Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal advocacy group in Washington. "We've gone from a situation in which we might have a long-overdue debate on deep poverty to the possibility, perhaps even the likelihood, that low-income people will be asked to bear the costs. I would find it unimaginable if it wasn't actually happening."

*** END QUOTE ***

The Times quotes a couple of conservative antipoverty types, the Heritage Foundation's Stuart Butler and the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise's Robert Woodson. Butler identifies half the reason for the problem: that "the left has just talked up the old paradigm: 'let's expand what's failed before.' "

There's another part of the problem, though. Although the left is wedded to a failed ideology and the right has better antipoverty ideas, most conservatives view poverty as a fairly marginal issue. This makes political sense: The inner-city poor vote overwhelmingly Democratic, when they vote at all, so Republicans have little incentive to worry about how to improve their lives.

George W. Bush seems pretty clearly to be an exception to this; all indications are that he genuinely cares about the poor. And he did put forward some innovative ideas in the wake of Katrina. But there is a sense among political observers that the president is in a weak political position right now; if so, one would expect his poverty ideas to go by the boards.

Those who really care about the poor, then, should hope that the president recovers politically (or that his current supposed malaise is a case of wishful thinking on his opponents' part). The alternative is to wait for the left to free itself from its ideological straitjacket, and we wouldn't hold our breath for that.