Posted on 02/09/2012 9:52:24 AM PST by SeekAndFind
RICK SANTORUM’s FISCAL PRIORITIES:
* Santorum supports Congressman Paul Ryan’s plan toallow workers who retire in 10 years to choose from a variety of plans, with some part of the premiums paid by the government. Premiums would vary, depending on income and health. Current retirees, and those retiring before 2022, would stay on traditional Medicare.
* Santorum wants to bring the Social Security program into balance by gradually raising the retirement age for younger workers and changing the indexing of benefits.
* Santorum wants to cut non-defense spending to 2008 levels. He would end energy subsidies and other wasteful government programs, cutting $5 trillion over 5 years.
* Santorum wants to simplify the tax code by moving from five to two rates, 10 percent and 28 percent, and eliminating many deductions. This is in stark contrast to President Obama, who proposes new taxes on different classes of Americans every few months.
* In addition to lowering personal income tax rates, Santorum would abolish the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax, which is adjusted downwards every year by Congress. Even so, it is now paid by millions of Americans, particularly those with large families in states with high income taxes.
* Santorum would lower corporate tax rates, at 35 percent now the highest in the world. He would cut the rate to 17.5 percent and allow the cost of all business equipment to be deducted in the year of purchase. Manufacturing would have a zero rate of tax.
* Santorum administration would be to replace senior government regulators who are at war with the American worker with competent officials who will encourage growth in the American economy and an expanding workforce.
* One of Santorum’s highest priorities is to repeal the new health care law, and replace it with competition and choice for health insurance, the way people purchase auto, home, and life insurance.
Moral pluralism???? That’s a new term for moral relativity, with which we are all too familiar. Foreign policy realism is what we see from the Obama administration.
This sounds like a Mitt Romney endorsement to me. (I didn’t finish reading the article)
Nnnnnnnnnnnnope!
My rather broad definition of a libertarian is just a Democrat who doesn’t want to pay his own taxes.
Libertarians should stay out of politics and stick to checking out books at the libertary.
Uh, no.
Perhaps there could be... one wild card he might consider playing is — if he were to get the nomination — making an offer to Rand Paul for the VP slot.
I don’t know if Libertarians would be totally upset with another Obummer term. One thing I notice is the that they almost never bash Obummer. Ron Paul, the standard bearer for the movement, always bashes the GOP but never Obummer. Libertarian supporters of his also spend all their time bashing the other candidates instead of focusing on the real threat, Obummer. They may think he is their best shot for legalized drugs, which seems to be their overriding issue.
And yet the founders were predominantly Christian. So people with a given worldview can start the country, but someone with the same view coming along later could not help preserve it? This government was and always has been a delicate balancing act between the rights of the individual and the will and the welfare of society. Ron Paul goes too far. Is it “realism” in foreign affairs to think that Iran is benign and will simply relent if we just mind our own business? At one end of the spectrum is anarchy, the libertarian direction. At the other is a totalitarian state, Obama’s direction. The goal should be in the middle tending toward the freedom end.
I was thinking “moral pluralism” might be a subset of “multiple realities.” (smile)
The author, John Samples, seeks to discredit Santorum strictly on his position on abortion, without actually mentioning “abortion”.
It is my understanding that abortion is a divisive topic in libertarian circles. So the author avoids mentioning it. Go ahead, do a search. No mention of “abortion” or “pro-life” anywhere in the article.
The author begins with this statement: “He opposes moral pluralism in favor of a society and government that recognizes and acts on Christian virtues.”
To the best of my knowledge, the only Christian virtue that Santorum champions as a role in government is the Right to Life.
The author then builds the rest of his argument by further broadening the influence that Santorum’s pro-life stance will have: “Santorum speaks of free markets, but his cultural commitments are bound to require limits on economic liberty. “
See how this slimy article works?
- don’t mention abortion...even though that is what the author bases the article on. Too divisive for libertarians.
- expand the argument further by using the term “...are bound to ...” See, now the author is free to make Santorum to be anything he wants him to be
- takes part in the modern trend of bashing “Christian virtues” - it is all the rage nowadays
It’s an endorsement for libertarianism. Just listen to Ron Paul’s platform or watch John Stossel’s. Libertarians march in lockstep on their policy views even more than progressives. They want virtually no government spending, no moral imperatives coming from the government, and an isolationist foreign policy. I think in the medium-to-long-term there are a very real and growing threat to Republicans, either internally like Ron Paul or as a third party.
The Republican party doesn’t have as well-defined an ideology as either libertarians or progressives (which have basically taken over the Democrat party). I guess our ideology is conservatism, but there is disagreement on what that means or to what degree it means it. The religious conservatives as exemplified by Rick Santorum have nowhere else to go but Republicans, being hated by both libertarians and progressives. I like the small-government, big-business-skeptical populism coming from Palin and Newt, but the exact policy implications behind that message are still being shaped.
The Republican party seems to be more fractured and splintered in its ideology than ever, which is probably why this primary is so erratic. There is a serious, fundemental divide shaping up between the libertarians and the religious conservatives, not to mention a more moderate wing in-between of socially liberal fiscal conservatives who might not be dovish on foreign policy. It just looks like we’re going to be stuck fighting this battle in every primary for a long time, with one side always coming out unhappy. It seems more logical that we’d eventually split into the Tea Party and the Libertarian Party, but pragmatism is probably what’s stopping that from happening for now.
One thing I’m pretty sure of, Mitt Romney is the second choice of the Ron Paul people who are rational enough to be considering a second choice. Which is another reason Newt/Rick are unlikely to make their way out of a brokered convention. Their combined votes would have to beat Mitt and Ron’s combined votes if the alliances go that way.
Santorum looks like a Conservative, but talks like a Statist. His words to the commies at NPR:
“One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. You know, the left has gone so far left and the right in some respects has gone so far right that they touch each other. They come around in the circle. This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.”
Source: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/rick-santorum-v-limited-government/
“I’m not comfortable with intelligent design being taught in the science classroom.”
Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4784905
So what are you saying? That the government should
-keep abortion legal for any reason
-legalize heroin
-cut the military to the bone
“One thing I’m pretty sure of, Mitt Romney is the second choice of the Ron Paul people who are rational enough to be considering a second choice. “
Because the one thing they really want is universal Romneycare to take care of them after they OD’d on heroin.
Sen. SANTORUM: I think I would probably tailor that a little more than what the president has suggested, that I'm not comfortable with intelligent design being taught in the science classroom. What we should be teaching are the problems and holes and I think there are legitimate problems and holes in the theory of evolution. And what we need to do is to present those fairly from a scientific point of view. And we should lay out areas in which the evidence supports evolution and the areas in the evidence that does not.
This author is an idiot if they would support Obama (a full on marxist over Rick Santorum).
However, it would be funny if his prediction of having Santorum the nominee comes true—and then Santorum Wins!
Libertarians can even support Santo on social issues.
The ultimate liberty is LIFE. There is a huge libertarian argument that the unborn has rights. Wait until that unborn is born and is old enough to consent to his own abortion. Most libertarians I know when asked their permission to have themselves aborted would say NO WAY. Obama, not being even in the slightest interested in liberty, feels his mother was “punished” with him, and wants anyone surviving an abortion to be set aside like trash and allowed to die, so he’d probably agree to his own retroactive abortion.
I know that Santorum would disagree with the right of gays to marry, but it’s not up to the President what rights any kind of household has, or what they do behind closed doors. If libertarians could just go along with 7000 years of history and leave the word marriage as it is traditionally defined, gays can do everything else but that word.
You aren’t a libertarian if you don’t want freedom of lifestyle for EVERYONE. If you only want YOUR lifestyle to be free, you’re just a selfish shmo. So it doesn’t matter whether your President is a Christian or a pothead or a cowboy. As long as he fights for the Constitution, and freedom of oppression from the government, that is what you need.
And if you like Ron Paul’s foreign policy, go live in appeasement land in Europe. You will NEVER get that here. And millions all over the world are glad of it.
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