Posted on 05/21/2003 7:52:37 PM PDT by TLBSHOW
What Happened To Limited Government?
The calls I took on Tuesday from guys in their 30's asking what happened to calls for limited government on our side have turned out to be quite prescient, folks - yet apparently they went unheard. Yes, as you can hear in the audio links below, the conservative intelligentsia in Washington D.C. (who only talk to other people inside the Beltway), doesn't think our 20 or 30 million strong EIB family exists and that nobody is making the argument for limited government. They see incremental liberalism (40% of what liberals want) as the new way in Washington.
A memo by Reagan official Donald J. Devine of the American Conservative Union: "Journalistic conservatism is silent about this growth of government, which is especially fueled by neoconservative dreams of empire and which threatens the whole project of American liberty." So fear not those of you who have gotten mad at me for criticizing the Bush administration and GOP Congress for spending more and growing government on the education bill, farm bill, etc., and saying that conservatives should be outraged that the federal budget spends $2.3 trillion a year. Apparently what I say doesn't matter.
Devine claims that "most conservative pressure ends up as simple cheerleading for the White House." I have said that Republicans are spending right along with Democrats, and that the president has gone along with them. I have demanded to know how in the world $50 billion in tax cuts so far equals a $400 billion deficit, yet spending $2.3 trillion somehow has no role in it - especially when tax cuts increase revenue. (See: dynamic scoring) I have said that the more of our money the government spends, the less money we have to spend and reminded everyone that CFR is an attack on the First Amendment and that the Constitution limits what government can do, not what individuals can do.
The Founding Fathers, in their infinite wisdom, saw the need to leave all journalists alone - not just the New York Times, but the National Enquirer and guys like James Callendar who smeared for and against Thomas Jefferson. Ralph Z. Hallow cites this Divine memo and others in his Washington Times column headlined: "Activists on the Right Fear a Waning Influence." He makes this point that there is "nobody" carrying the banner for limited government. He cites conservatives who urged Bush to fight for Senate confirmation of judicial nominees, even those "moderates" from the Clinton administration.
That was the "new tone," and I've ripped it from day one! (But apparently I'm not heard in the Beltway.) I've said that you're nuts if you think you can get along with liberals. I guess people like you and me don't matter until it's election time - and then these Beltway blowhards come calling hat in hand and act like what you want matters. Since it's too far from Election Day, they just talk to each other and decide that they're all that matters. If only I had an address inside the hallowed boundaries of I-495, I could be a voice that the self-appointed conservative intellectuals would recognize. What a bizarre piece. Clearly these guys never heard that so long as I'm here, it doesn't matter where "here" is.
Same as it ever was.
At least once an election period I hear a sound in the wilderness that I can relate to. Not much has changed in Washington from the Klintoons. Many of his rascals are there awaiting their time to pounce on my types. This president had a chance to rid us of these types & also the bag lady & her impeached so-called husband but that apparantly was too radical for him & Rove etc. So now we must contend with these anti-Americans who reached the portals of the senate spewing hatred for Judeo-Christian values no less our Constitution. But his father had NO problem ridding Washington of the Reagan era. Two years & that was totally gone. No, my friends here at FR I believe you have gotten the biggest snow job with Dubya. He seems a good man & good American & did the correct thing in Iraq but other than that he is as big of a disappointment as his daddy was to true conservativism. Sadly this is the best this old Goldwaterite will ever see again in his lifetime & pity the poor sheeple in the next few decades.
Look, if I had to bet, I'd bet that SC will throw most of it out.
However, you never know for sure how the SC will rule.
If I had my way, I'd have them reject the whole damn package on the grounds of First Amendment violations.
Maybe he is getting wiser as he gets older. Republicans are targeted by Political Correctness (PC) from the Left and by Ideological Correctness (IC) from the Right. PC will likely backfire on the Democrats but IC is a boon to the Left.
Ideological Correctness dogma: big government, labor unions, teachers unions, bureaucracy, etc....are all bad. Result: The Left owns it all — lock stock, and barrel — and we just bitch about it and continue to be victimized by it (even across party lines).
As long as those potent institutions exist, then I don't want Liberals controlling them. Why did we ever allow that to happen? If people want or need to be dependent on government, then I don't want Liberals answering their needs because it exacerbates the problem. And allowing the Liberals to control academia, i.e., the education or uneducation of our children, is self subjugation and masochism at its worse. How could we do this to our kids?
That's just my take on it.
Then you must NOT have been listening after CFR. Rush did indeed SLAM the President for signing and the Republcians for voting for it.
There have been several times when Bush gave Dems 1/2 of what they wanted and I screamed. Rush did too but said that with the new tone it would take away their issues.
it did too, we won in 2002.
Once the economy grows some and we WIN BIGTIME in 2004 then they better start cutting back but there is no reason for us not to send our letters TODAY telling them that we want it. They will need the 18 months for it to sink in that we really do want limited government.
Rush should know that they're doing dynamic scoring now, but unfortunately it doesn't show that tax cuts would increase revenue. Both the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation have done macroeconomic analyses of the proposed tax cut, and not one of the many economic models they use shows that the tax cut would result in increased revenues. All show some positive macroeconomic feedback, but all conclude that the tax cut loses revenue over time.
If you dig through Cato's website you will find a piece from the mid- to late-1980s by William Niskanen and Stephen Moore (no less!) that acknowledges that the 1981 tax cut did not increase revenues to the federal government. Also, check out Bruce Bartlett's archive on townhall.com for his December 31, 2002 column on the same mythology.
At least three Reagan economists wrote books on the Reagan economic program, and all denied that revenues to the Treasury increased due to the rate cuts. The point of the rate cuts was to stimulate economic growth, and the Reagan economists had predicted that the resulting economic growth would recoup a portion of what would be lost to the Treasury with lower rates. Lawrence Lindsey's study found the amount recouped to be fully two-thirds of the loss predicted by static analysis, so the actual reduction to the Treasury amounted to but a third of the amount predicted by static analysis. But a loss there was, which is why Reagan asked Congress for offsetting spending cuts. Only capital gains cuts resulted in an actual increase of revenue by the Treasury.
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