Posted on 10/10/2006 11:08:32 AM PDT by Small-L
When The Washington Monthly reached me at my office recently, a voice on the other side of the line meekly asked if I would ever consider writing an article supporting the radical proposition that Republicans should get their brains beaten in this fall.
“Count me in!” was my chipper response. I also seem to remember muttering something about preferring an assortment of Bourbon Street hookers running the Southern Baptist Convention to having this lot of Republicans controlling America’s checkbook for the next two years.
Maybe that’s because right-wing, knuckle-dragging Republicans like myself took over Congress in 1994 promising to balance the budget and limit Washington’s power. We were a nasty breed and had no problem blaming Bill and Hillary Clinton for everything from the exploding federal deficit to male pattern baldness. I suspected then, as I do now, that Hillary Clinton herself had something to do with “Love, American Style” and “Joanie Loves Chachi.” And why not blame her? Back then, Newt Gingrich felt comfortable blaming the drowning of two little children on Democratic values. Hell. It was 1994. It just seemed like the thing to do.
The terminally rumpled Dick Armey (R-Whiskey Gulch) even went so far as to suggest that the Clintons might be Marxists, drawing an angry personal rebuke from Bubba himself. But 12 years later, it is Armey’s fellow Republicans who should be sobered by the short and ugly history of Republican Supremacy.
Under Bill Clinton’s presidency, discretionary spending grew at a modest rate of 3.4 percent. Not too bad for a Marxist, even considering that his worst instincts were tempered by a Republican Congress. (Well, his worst fiscal instincts.)
But compare Clinton’s 3.4 percent growth rate to the spending orgy that has dominated Washington since Bush moved into town. With Republicans in charge of both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, spending growth has averaged 10.4 percent per year. And the GOP’s reckless record goes well beyond runaway defense costs. The federal education bureaucracy has exploded by 101 percent since Republicans started running Congress. Spending in the Justice Department over the same period has shot up 131 percent, the Commerce Department 82 percent, the Department of Health and Human Services 81 percent, the State Department 80 percent, the Department of Transportation 65 percent, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development 59 percent. Incredibly, the four bureaucracies once targeted for elimination by the GOP Congress—Commerce, Energy, Education, and Housing and Urban Development—have enjoyed spending increases of an average of 85 percent.
It’s enough to make economic conservatives long for the day when Marxists were running the White House.
This must all be shocking to my Republican friends who still believe our country would be a better place if our party controlled every branch of government as well as every news network, movie studio, and mid-American pulpit. But evidence suggests that divided government may be what Washington needs the most.
During the 1990s, conservative Republicans and the Clinton White House somehow managed to balance the budget while winning two wars, reforming welfare, and conducting an awesome impeachment trial focused on oral sex and a stained Gap dress.
The fact that both parties hated each another was healthy for our republic’s bottom line. A Democratic president who hates a Republican appropriations chairman is less likely to sign off on funding for the Midland Maggot Festival being held in the chairman’s home district. Soon, budget negotiations become nasty, brutish, and short and devolve into the legislative equivalent of Detroit, where only the strong survive.
But in Bush’s Washington, the capital is a much clubbier place where everyone in the White House knows someone on the Hill who worked with the Old Man, summered in Maine, or pledged DKE at Yale. The result? Chummy relationships, no vetoes, and record-breaking debts.
As a political junkie who wept bitter tears the night Jimmy Carter got elected and shouted with uncontrolled joy when Ronald Reagan whipped his sorry ass four years later, I find myself ambivalent for the first time over a national election. After six years of Republican recklessness at home and abroad, I seriously doubt Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid or the aforementioned Bourbon Street hookers could spend this country any deeper into debt than my Republican Party. With any luck, Democrats will launch destructive investigations, a new era of bad feelings will break out, and George W. Bush will stop using his veto pen to fill in Rangers’ box scores and instead start using it like a conservative president should.
Put the Wayback Machine into reverse and let us know.
That is awesome! Thanks for posting.
Are you Howard Dean?
No, just someone who cares about the future of the Republican majority (and who doesn't have his head in the sand).
I have to agree with you on this. I would also like to add my two cents. To me, being a Republican and a conservative means more than just having a balanced budget. To me, it means maintaining or expanding freedom. It also means supporting the military, which as a general rule, the liberals do not. It measns supporting American values, which the liberals do not. I think this budget is going to be with us for decades to come because eventually, someone or a bunch of someones, will wake up and realize we cannot pussyfoot around with these terrorists. That is when the money will realy be spent! I want to maintain a Republican/Conservative majority so that we can get some judges who will follow the Constitution. Hopefully, abortion as a legal right will stop, the land grab will stop, and affirmative action will stop.
I agree that being a Republican is more than balancing a budget. The thing that irritates me most is not the budget deficits per se, but rather the fact that we achieved the deficits spending like a drunken sailor. The list of earmarks passed by Congress should be downright embarrassing to any member of Congress who has a semblance of a conscience. It has gotten to the point that I believe Congress (and by implication its leadership) has betrayed the public's trust. And to be sure, no, I do not believe the Rats will do any better, and I will certainly vote accordingly. It is just disheartening to have to support the continued gravy train. Just remember, our national security hinges on more than just guns and bombs: a sound and stable economy is equally important.
Even "Scrooge" (after his enlightenment) and "Hoover" might recognize that even in the toughest of times, fundamental principles of life and liberty must prevail.
Republicans, if they are to win in November, must appeal to those American citizens (their core base) who still believe that the Founders' ideas, as expressed in their Declaration of Independence and resulting Constitution, must not be overturned by what are described as progressive "liberal" judges who strike down laws protecting life and property.
Even in war and recession (there's no recession just now), these principles become even more important, not less so!
Democrats would like to keep the focus on contemporary issues (Iraq and scandal), allowing them to win votes so that they can return to their primary agendas: promoting more powerful central government and pro-abortion judges.
As stated in my previous post, Republicans who want to win in November should remind their voters of two things:
1. Liberal judges who will be be appointed by Democrats.
2. Liberal laws on abortion and other life issues under Democrats.
Protection of life and individual property are fundamental principles that Democrats and the judges they appoint will not secure. History documents that fact.
Aww. You're just so smart and you couldn't tell the question was rhetorical. You attack the GOP just like Dean. Your crocodile tears ain't fooling anyone but yourself. I'm sure you care about the future of the Republican majority...just like Dean, you want to defeat it.
Go back to DU or Kos and get some more "special interest" material.
bump
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