Posted on 09/02/2006 5:09:31 AM PDT by Marius3188
They can be removed.
While I disagree with many Frum's particulars, I think that Republicans and conservatives generally MUST face up to certain plain demographic and economic realities:
(1) American workers will continue to become less competitive globally, as low wage countries continue to ramp up their productivity, capacity, and sophistication far faster than they are ramping up their workers' wages. The equilibrium point -- of real, taxable income derived from productivity -- is probably somewhere around HALF of the real, taxable income received by an average worker in America now.
(2) the burden of Baby Boomer's Medicare, Medicaid for end of life, Social Security, and state and local public worker pensions is ENORMOUS now, and it will become even larger when technology figures how to extend the typical retiree's life by 10 or more years from where the actuaries now figure it. And if the actuaries are TOO optimistic about birth rates and net immigration, as they may well be, then there will be even fewer workers to support the retirees than now modeled.
What this means is that before very long, the majority of Americans will be DIRECTLY dependent upon government intervention to maintain the decent lifestyle they see as their right. Retirees and the soon-to-be-retired need the government to support them. Workers will need the government to subsidize (in one way or another) their lack of productivity vs. global competition AND offset the burden of supporting the retirees. And when you factor in everyone who makes a living from selling goods and services to that vast group of people, well, there's another source of support for intervention.
Republicans will need to have good, timely and sensible answers to these challenges. Some of those answers WILL be strategic retreats, but others of them need to be strong, principled defenses of the market, which are nevertheless sensitive to realities. Choice in education can be victorious, choice in healthcare can be preserved and even grow, incentives for innovation and entrepreneurship can be maintained, etc.
The one thing that is quite certain is that more appeals to social conservativism will NOT be the solution. A lot of people may dislike abortion and gay marriage; very few of those people are going to be willing to SACRIFICE to vindicate those views. When a Democrat, without capable Republican refutation, puts the choice to people that they can either start to live like the working class in Shanghai or Bangalore, or just decide to live and let live regarding gay marriage, but not both, don't have any doubt which may most people will go.
Nice try...
The only way the Left can win is to undermine conservatives in the Republican party...
Nice try...
CATO is Trojan Horse for Cultural Marxism...
The only way the Left can win is to undermine conservatives in the Republican party...
seems like typical divide and conquer.
Someone is trying to recreate the balcanized party of consensus democrats. (compared to republicans party of principle, in theory)
Democrats have been trying to split social policy from fiscal policy.
This is all nutty and nitpicking. Democrats bring the democrat hangers on. Democrats brought the Gorlick Wall, Friend of Hitlary Janet Reno, Nancy Communist Peolosi.
Instead we need to increase the number of republicans so the RINOs become expendible.
Well said - I'd only add that there are a lot of paradoxes that it's currently impossible for either conventional “liberal” or “conservative” approaches to resolve.
One example is immigration. Substantial immigration is the only way we can archive sufficient demographic balance to support the large demographic bulge of older Americans over the next 40 years - just asking (or forcing) people to “save more for retirement” without sufficient available younger workers during their retirement years does not solve the problem as it will bid up the price of services being provided by a too small number of working age Americans to too large a number of retries – those who save more will be relatively better off, but retirees as a group will be worse off in absolute terms.
But meanwhile, immigration almost certainly depresses the wages of native-born workers, possibly creates a short-term net-cost (it appears that the jury is still out on the accounting) and certainly creates social and political friction between recent immigrants, earlier immigrants, and native-born Americans – which in turn is mostly exploited by politicians in both major parties for short-term political advantage rather than long-term economic and political stability.
your are right:
Reverend Walis saying religion is for the Democrat Party
"Log" Cabin Republicans (homosexual group pretending to be republican)
Republicans for Abortion
We can go on and on
It points out that Demcrats have no more power and need to pull power from Republicans. Just look at the DNC talking points.
I think the immigration debate is being spun with little common sense involved.While it's a no brainer that there will be more younger working people required to support the aging boomer generation as well as supporting the rest of the financial requirements of the country,the answer of essentually letting the bars down and allowing anybody who can get here to come in is counter productive.The notion that bringing huge amounts of people to an economic\education\social level in the near future to make a positive difference I believe is a pipe dream.The truth of the matter is that it's going to take a large amount of the nations capital to get many of these people to the point needed to make a positive difference !!!
I don't know about "a large amount" but certainly it's a "substantial" amount.
But the reverse is also true – it's an impolitic truth that a lot of the labor that is going to be needed is relatively low-grade “social capital”.
For example visit a typical “retirement home”, the majority of the labor that keeps it running does not require anything beyond a seventh-grade education, and much of it does not even require literacy.
And in fact, it would probably be difficult to staff it - in anything like it's current form and function anyway - with better educated and more sophisticated workers.
I don't think we've got a shortage now or in the future of uneducated poor people to fill nursing home jobs.As a matter of fact I personally know a number of people who would fit nicely into these jobs but you see they're on welfare or disability,(for what exactly I can't figure out) so their not interested in these jobs or any others for that fact !!!
You clearly don't understand the purpose of the government.
Your solution is very 'command economy' style sovietism.
3200 words to say the obvious. Everything is growing long.
Wise words. -- The 'welfare state' as it is presently set up has middle-class folks left "holding the bag."
--- Either we "level the playing field", or the system will collapse.
Blaming the messenger [the Cato Institute] for this political fact is useless.
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