Posted on 07/14/2008 4:32:44 AM PDT by Kaslin
Are we undergoing some kind of sea change of attitudes in America today?
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne reflects such sentiment -- perhaps I should say wishful thinking -- by those on the left that indeed we are. He says capitalism is having a "reality check."
The era of big government is back, according to Dionne. Americans now want to re-regulate, re-tax, redistribute, and re-socially engineer.
I don't think so.
What we do know is that Americans are unhappy with the state of their country (almost 85 percent say they are dissatisfied) and their political leaders (more than 70 percent are unhappy with their president and 90 percent are unhappy with the Congress).
Although enthusiasm for the Republican Party is without question on the wane, there is no accompanying surge of popularity of the Democratic Party.
According to recent reporting from the Pew Research Center, favorability ratings for the Republican Party have gone from 55 percent in 1993 to 39 percent in 2007 as unfavorable ratings increased from 35 percent to 53 percent. However, over the same period, favorability ratings for the Democratic Party have also declined, although more modestly -- from the high 50s in 1993 to the low 50s in 2007. And Democratic Party unfavorable ratings went up from around 35 percent to 41 percent.
And let's not forget that both houses of Congress are controlled by Democrats where approval hovers at an all time low.
What do I think is actually going on?
First, I think it is a mistake to associate disillusionment with today's GOP with disillusionment with the principles of limited government and traditional values. It has been so long since American voters have seen the GOP led by anyone who truly carries the banner of these great American principles that they can't remember what it is like.
Under Republican leaders in the last 25 years, we've seen government grow, entitlements expand, and -- except for welfare reform in 1996, passed by a Republican congress and signed by a Democratic president -- we've seen little in the way of market-based reforms and government rollback.
Despite accusations that John McCain is simply running for George W. Bush's third term, the ease with which Sen. Barack Obama has embraced one of President Bush's signature programs -- faith-based initiatives, in which government doles out funds to religious institutions -- tells us something. And it is not that Obama is becoming more conservative.
What's going on is not an ideological crack-up but a branding crack-up. Rejection of the Republican Party today is not a rejection of limited government and traditional values. It is a rejection of what the Republican Party morphed into.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has remained true to its principles of big government and moral relativism. And it's not registering more enthusiasm among voters.
It just doesn't take rocket science or an expensive political consultant to appreciate that voters are, for darned good reason, unhappy. Politically, what being unhappy means is either not voting or voting for whatever the alternative is.
What also is happening is we are witnessing a phenomenon that, at least for the time being, is personal -- not ideological.
Obama is succeeding in tapping into the public's general disgust with everything and using his considerable charm and calm and reassuring persona to exploit it.
It's why he may succeed in flip-flopping all over the place and taking liberties with the details of stands he takes over time. Much of the enthusiasm he is generating is not being generated by those details. It is being generating by him.
The Pew Research Center recent report shows an incredible gap in visibility of the two candidates. They report 71 percent visibility of Obama and 11 percent for McCain. This is the "percentage of the public that has heard the most about each candidate that week."
Roger Ailes, president of Fox News, says in his book "You Are the Message" how he helped Ronald Reagan get re-elected in 1984 by getting him to stop worrying about details and just be himself. And, in fact, Reagan's campaign that year was about "morning in America."
So the 2008 election is about change. It's not ideology. It's personal. And those who care about limited government and traditional values should be worried.
Hussien’s campaign slogan
“Obama ‘08 - Because McCain can’t ruin this country fast enough”
As a nation, we are not without problems, but the MSM has sold every problem we do have as being worse than it really is and has created the sense that we are in worse shape than we have ever been.
LLS
The next great backlash in this country will not be over services or entitlements, but over taxes. People are being taxed at ever-increasing rates, and at some point, it has to stop.
Obama’s going to want those quarters too....
Obama is not flip-flopping on his core economic agenda. He is unwavering on resolving the operating, Medicare and Social Security deficits with higher individual taxes on the most productive, significant increases in the government’s role in health care, a dramatic shift in favor of unions in labor relations, and a curtailment of tort reform.
This is not to say that there isn’t some uncertainty on important economic issues. He’s clearly conflicted on foreign trade, on taxing private equity and hedge fund profits as ordinary income, on how far to re-regulate the financial markets, and a few other items like that. The extent to which he wants to reverse welfare reform, and the magnitude and emphases of a variety of his infrastructure and “economic opportunity for the underprivileged” are also far from clear. Finally, he appears unsure how much the government should try to hold up housing prices and subsidize / bail-out housing finance.
Voters were sleeping November 2006 and don’t know democrats are in charge of congress. (it’s the dynamics of having Bush as president, it’s the only thing voters know.) How can we win if voters are this dumb AND LAZY? My proof is this poll.
Comment 17
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2043452/posts?page=17#17
“Thinking ahead to November 2008, regardless of your local contest, which party would you like to see in control of Congress after the next congressional elections: the Democrats or the Republicans?” Options rotated
democrat=54%, republicans=40% .
“When you think about Congress, do you think the average representative deserves to be reelected, or would we be better off throwing most of them out and starting over with new people?”
45%=throw out/26%=re-elect
Part 1
In just one year Remember the election in 2006?
A little over one year ago:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high.
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon.
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.
Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:
1) Consumer confidence plummet.
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $4.00 a gallon.
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase).
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses).
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars.
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.
America voted for change in 2006, and we got it!
Remember it's Congress that makes law not the President. He has to work with what's handed to him.
Quote of the Day........"My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it." --Barack Obama
Part 2:
Taxes...Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics enlightening and amazing. Federal Individual Income Tax Rates History, 1913-2008
Taxes under Clinton 1999/ Taxes under Bush 2008
Single making 30K - tax $8,400/ Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $14,000/ Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $23,250/ Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K - tax $16,800/ Married making 60K - tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $21,000/ Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $38,750/ Married making 125K - tax $31,250
Guess who wants to retrun to the higher tax rates?
It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever? If Obama is elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can't wait for it to happen. This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman - you scam somebody out of some money and they don't even know what happened.
PART 3:
You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much?
Read this:
Boy am I confused. I have been hammered with the propaganda that it is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us.
I now find that to be RIDICULOUS. I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I have included the URL's for verification of all the following facts.
1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments. Verify at: Immigration and Welfare
2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. Verify at: Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget
3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. Verify at: The High Cost of Cheap Labor
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English! Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. Verify at LOU DOBBS TONIGHT
6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. Verify at: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. Verify at: LOU DOBBS
8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers. Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. Verify at: LOU DOBBS
10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular,their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US Verify at: LOU DOBBS
11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border. Verify at: Homeland Security Report
12. The National Policy Institute, "estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period." Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf
13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. Verify at: Violent Crimes Institute
The total cost is a whopping $338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR. Are we THAT stupid?
If this doesn't bother you then just delete the message. If, on the other hand, if it does raise the hair on the back of your neck, I hope you forward it to every legal resident in the country including every representative in Washington, D.C. - five times a week for as long as it takes to restore some semblance of intelligence in our policies and enforcement thereof.
Taxes, and the increasingly tyrannical social engineering that comes with it. I'm just so sick of it.
“taxes, and the increasingly tyrannical social engineering that comes with it. i’m just so sick of it.”
imagine if obama becomes president. there are going to be arrogant, self-proclaimed intellectual-giant, brilliant liberal democrats infesting the white house, not to mention the anticipated increase of arrogant, liberal democrat geniuses in both houses of congress.
if you think you’ve seen tyranny of late, you “ain’t seen nuthin yet”. get ready for an onslaught by haughty, arrogant, liberal-democrat punks.
IMHO
EXCELLENT! I’ll plaster it around.
Classic socialist/communist "cult of personality". Demagoguery run amok.
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