Posted on 08/02/2014 4:14:38 AM PDT by servo1969
Earlier this year, congressman and former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan released a proposed budget for 2015. It contains an impressive list of cuts projecting a $5.1 trillion savings over ten years. It is also the height of political stupidity and an example of everything that cripples Republicans in their battles with the left.
If you are going to make budget cuts, you do it. You don’t telegraph it. Paul Ryan can’t even make budget cuts unless Republicans win the White House and he has just made it harder for them to do it.
For starters, Ryan’s list of cuts includes the subsidy to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and likely reductions in funding to the Legal Services Corporation. These cuts (and there are many more) may be reasonable from an accounting point of view. Politically, however, what they mean is that the tens of millions of fans of public radio and television will see Ryan and the Republicans as mortal enemies, and so will the poor who benefit from Legal Services, and also their advocates and more importantly all those middle class Americans who have a charitable attitude towards the less fortunate. Republicans should hope that no one hears of Paul Ryan’s plan.
Of course Republicans will be thrilled by all these proposed cuts. But everyone who understands the importance of fiscal responsibility is probably already a Republican.
What Republicans fail to grasp is that Democrats have made the political conflict a moral war, while Republicans continue to approach it as an argument over policy. What policy could Obama run on in the last presidential election? Everyone agrees that there was none. Obama ran against Republicans by charging they were anti-woman, anti-black, anti-poor and so forth. And this battle plan wasn’t even original with him. It is the staple of Democrats’ attacks.
What is the Republican answer? There is none. There is a lot of defensive shuffling. But there is no counter-attack of equal magnitude and force that would put Democrats on the defensive.
Here’s an obvious one. Throw the Democrats’ victims in their faces.
Over the last fifty years the Democrats have trapped tens of millions of poor black and Hispanic children in schools that don’t teach them, because they are run for the benefit teachers unions and to fill the Democrats’ slush funds. Democrats have condemned these children to lives of poverty and hopelessness. But Republicans are too polite to mention it.
And women? Over the last fifty years, Democrat-designed welfare programs have seduced single mothers into accepting a support system that destroys their incentives to better themselves and condemns them to lives of permanent poverty as members of the underclass. A free apartment, free food, and a monthly stipend would kill almost anybody’s incentive to seek out the vast opportunities that America affords its free citizens.
For fifty years and more Democrats have exercised monopoly control over America’s large inner cities, some of which, like Detroit are 85 percent African American, and all of which are centers of poverty and violent crime. The president’s own city, Chicago, is among them. Everything that is wrong with the inner cities of America that policy can affect, Democrats are responsible for. But Republicans are too polite to mention it.
Republicans need to understand that the political battle is a moral battle. The Democratic Party is a racist party whose bootheel is on the necks of poor black and Hispanic children and their parents across this nation.
The Democratic Party is also anti-freedom. It has spent the last six years ramming through a government program that takes away the individual’s ability to choose his or her health care. The government says you can only choose from our plans, and if you have played by the rules and worked hard and earned a reasonable income we are going to stick our hands in your pocket and subsidize somebody who hasn’t. Obamacare is the most anti-American idea imposed on this nation since the end of slavery, and yet every Democrat is behind it.
Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a game plan until you punch them in the mouth.” The Democrats’ lie that Republicans are conducting wars against women, minorities and the poor, is their punch in the mouth. What do Republicans have? They have no punch in the mouth because they are focused on policy rather than politics. If a voter sees you as a racist he is not going to weigh your policy recommendations in a fair-minded manner. Republicans need to punch Democrats in the mouth by using a moral language to describe the atrocities they have committed against minorities and the poor. But they are probably too polite to do so.
You said....
“Agree or disagree?”
Agree.
The GOP should, for example, put Detroit front and center of Democratic Party policy
“Republicans need to punch Democrats in the mouth by using a moral language to describe the atrocities they have committed against minorities and the poor.”
I like it.
Like Rush says, “Conservatism wins every time it’s tried.” But the GOPe is too ‘sophisticated’ for that.
They are convinced Conservatism scares people away.
(That’s probably because they don’t care for it themselves.)
I completely agree. The GOP just doesn’t know how to choreograph a battle. They are completely ham-handed.
Do what the left does.
Say what people want to hear , and then do your agenda once in power.
Is it so hard for the GOP ?
I agree also. GOP seems to be only concerned at demolishing anything that resembles a Tea Party sentiment. They bristle indignantly at the mere suggestion they’re sitting on their fat duffs, primarily concerned with how to engineer some kind of vote that will appease those who fund them without ticking off that base they hate so much.
As for Paul Ryan, his last foray into money and legislation tricked my Congressman into voting for it along with the likes of John Lewis and Hank Johnson. It is the reason why I voted against him in the primary and why I will not vote for him in November.
Let me put forth a different idea: this was neither hamfisted nor stupid.
Since when has the gop wing of the uniparty been interested in reducing spending or balancing a budget? Did something change during the last week? If your objective is to put forth conservative sounding ideas but not actually implement them, then this is an excellent way to do it.
Agree.
So many agree as evidenced by the frequent call to stand up to the dems.
Just fight back! Fight for us! But the fighters are few and are too frequently sucked into the DC cult of power.
A candidate that will fight and fight hard [punches in the Dem mouth] will do well. eg Cruz.
That characteristic alone, for better or worse, will overcome the potential negatives.
Fight dammit.
Why does it take 10 yrs to achieve anything in DC. If I cut my budget today, it takes effect today.
Since I’m a Senior on SS, widows benefits, as I was a stay at home mom, I’ve seen 2 tiny COLA raises in 5 yrs, half going to Medicare. Which left me with cash for less than a weeks worth of groceries. Which have quadrupled in price.
As I am having to pay for all of one of my meds as Medicare and Tricare Life won’t pay for more than 5 pills once, and I take 2 daily, plus the Holistic vitamin and mineral treatment for Osteoporosis, I’m allergic to the FDA warning OP drugs. And the doctor does not even know if it is working, as Medicare Mandated Bone Density test to every 2 yrs. Same goes for PSA test for men. That is what 0’care did to Medicare. Test I don’t need I can get yearly, test I need yearly I can only get every 2 yrs. DOES NOT COMPUTE.
True, except for Tea Party candidates and authentic practicing conservatives; in this case, they appear to have no problem finding ways to eliminate the opposing viewpoint. Redistricting is used to get rid of Col. West, Mississippi GOPe financing robocalls to minorities, etc. Horowitz is correct, however his premise is fundamentally flawed: He assumes that the Repukelicans are the Demonic Party's opposition.
I generally agree with the article as a whole, but especially like this line. Time after time, the idiot Repubs float a trial balloon of some grand scheme that's gonna deal the Administration a mortal blow, but this only serves to give the other side to mount a publicity campaign against the coup de grace du jour, effectively neutering it. How many weeks ago, for example, did they raise the specter of the lawsuit against Obama over legislative overreach?
Same thing happened with "We're gonna vote to hold Lois Lerner in contempt." Her frickin' refusal to testify was over a year ago, for crying out loud!
Be like Nike: JUST DO IT! and let the chips fall where they may. This is equivalent to pointing a gun at a home invader without having any intention to use it -- a very dangerous practice.
Thank God for the few good men the TEA Party managed to get elected. Ted Cruz is awesome at throwing the argument back and slapping the Dems in the face with it.
Democrats have condemned these children to lives of poverty and hopelessness.
Democrats are not finished yet the plantation has a lot of room left they want voting to be useless and stay in power Fabian socialist have been working on it from 1849.
agree, most of gop leaders need to be replaced. They don’t actually fight back by arguing for Conservative. Maybe because most of them don’t know how to because they’re not Conservative
Its really a matter of perception.
Freepers, conservatives, the base, the Tea Party, or whatever name you choose to use, are not very adept at differentiating between rhetoric and reality.
So when Ryan, Cruz, and/or others say or do things you shouldn't take it at face value or as reality. It is merely rhetoric designed to manipulate you or make you contribute
I guess the thought of being duplicitous just doesn't occur to some people.
Agree. David Horowitz has been saying this and several variations for a long time. He has put out pamphlets, books, seminars telling the GOP how to fight. But it is like the GOP is deaf...oh wait...they have their hands covering their ears...never mind.
Cuts to Corporation for Public Broadcasting, check.
Three Cheers for Ryan’s Plan
Townhall.com | August 2, 2014 | John C. Goodman
Posted on 8/2/2014 7:55:44 AM by Kaslin
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3188062/posts
Ryan is dumber than Patty Murray.
Agree. Problem is, no one is speaking for me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.