Posted on 06/17/2003 5:07:22 AM PDT by SUSSA
Democrats may be worried that George Bush is unbeatable in 2004, but President Bush’s strength is good news for progressives. No president since LBJ has been as successful in expanding government and increasing the size and scope of social programs as this president. Presidents Carter and Clinton didn’t even come close to matching President Bush’s accomplishments in expanding government social programs. George Bush increased government size and spending more in his first two years than Bill Clinton did in his first six years. By the end of this year, he will have expanded government more than Bill Clinton did in his entire eight-year administration.
To be fair, Bill Clinton had to fight the conservatives in Congress who threw up every roadblock they could muster to thwart his progressive agenda. George Bush has not only silenced the conservative wing of the Republican Party, he has ground them into pulp and made them toothless tigers.
There is no longer any serious talk about making government smaller or eliminating government departments or programs. Smaller government used to be the bedrock principal of the Republican Party. President Bush changed that and is pushing Republicans in Congress not just to accept bigger government, but to embrace it.
Instead of eliminating the Education Department, George Bush almost doubled its size and pushed through the largest increase in funding the department ever enjoyed. He and Ted Kennedy worked closely together to make sure that the federal government also has more power over local schools than ever before.
The testing mandated by the education bill, and the mandate that schools meet minimum standards is a brilliant maneuver that will demand the standards and the tests be controlled centrally from Washington. No one will be able to oppose national standards and a national testing system. Without national standards, testing is subjective and worthless. National standards and a standardized national test will require local schools teach to the test. That means Washington will be dictating the curriculum in every school in America. Bill Clinton and Al Gore couldn’t even dream of accomplishing this much progress.
In other areas President Bush also out performed President Clinton. He expanded other programs the Contract With America targeted for elimination. He expanded Americorps, the Peace Corps, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Head Start.
Working closely with progressive Republicans and Democrats, George Bush passed the farm bill that dismantled the Freedom to Farm Act that conservative Republicans pushed through Congress, and President Clinton signed, in 1996. This new legislation boosts farm spending to record levels. President Bush’s farm bill not only increased old subsidies, it created new subsidies our farmers never had before. No Democrat president could have pushed this legislation through a Republican controlled Congress. The conservative wing of the party still holds some powerful positions in Congress, especially in the House. They were proud of the Freedom to Farm Act and would have fought tooth and nail with a Democrat president to keep it in place. They caved in to President Bush without even a hint of a fight. President Bush effectively cut the conservatives in Congress off at the knees on this legislation and on most of their domestic agenda. He rules the Republican Party with an iron fist and conservatives are unable to out maneuver him.
President Bush signed the Campaign Finance Reform bill into law. Conservative Republicans in Congress are still quietly seething about how he steamrollered them on this. President Bush is also leading the fight to expand Medicare, add prescription drug coverage and mandate mental health coverage. Conservatives kept Presidents Carter and Clinton from adding these entitlements to Medicare. With President Bush pushing the agenda, they aren’t even pretending to oppose these additions.
The president is also leading the fight to extend the child tax credit to low income families excluded from the latest tax cut. He figuratively bitch-slapped Tom Delay and his conservative cohorts who threatened to derail the expanded credit, urging the Republicans to pass the bill quickly and send it to him for his signature. While progressive Republicans like to claim President Bush is following President Reagan’s vision for America, he is actually following President Nixon’s agenda to the letter. President Nixon never tried to eliminate any government program or agency. He expanded government as much as he could. Few people remember that it was President Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Endowment for the Arts. Fewer still remember that it was President Nixon who tied Social Security benefits to the cost of living. President Bush is surpassing President Nixon in advancing progressive social policy.
President Bush is also making talk radio safe for progressives. Hosts who would have railed against President Clinton, or any Democrat, for pushing the progressive agenda President Bush is implementing, excuse this president for it. Many of them attack any conservative who calls to point out that President Bush is a progressive. Even Rush Limbaugh is leery of taking on this president. While he occasionally offers some mild criticism of the president, he always follows that criticism by offering excuses for the president’s actions and progressive domestic agenda. This is partially due to the attacks that come from the Bush cultists any time anyone is anything but worshipful of their guy. Like Democrats who refused to believe that President Clinton was capable of doing any wrong, there is a group of Republicans who would support President Bush no matter how far left he governs. They attack anyone and any group who points out that President Bush is not conservative. Many of these people are domestic progressives who like big government and benefit from government programs. They call themselves conservatives; many of them really think they are conservatives. In fact, they support progressive social programs and most benefit from them. They are critical of the poor who receive government help, but enjoy generous government subsidies of their own lifestyles. Many talk show hosts fall into this category themselves.
The other reason even real conservatives are leery of voicing anything except the mildest criticism of President Bush is they fear retaliation from the administration. They fear being cut off from the information loop. They fear being dropped from the administration’s fax and E-mail grapevine. Their professional status is greatly enhanced by access to administration sources and President Bush is not shy about diminishing or eliminating that access for anyone who puts their principals ahead of support for his agenda.
All things considered, progressives are much better off with President Bush in office than they would be with any of his Democrat challengers. No Democrat on the scene today can come close to matching President Bush’s ability to advance the progressive agenda and marginalize the conservatives in the Republican Party. Four more years of a Bush administration will produce progressive gains that are only matched by FDR’s accomplishments. Rather than being disappointed that they don’t have a Democrat in the presidency, progressives should be thankful they have an ideological soul mate in office. For progressives the cry should be “FOUR MORE YEARS!”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Bender is a freelance writer from Dallas, Texas. His columns have appeared in The Dallas Morning News, Ether Zone, Right Magazine, The Sierra Times, USA Daily and other print and online publications. Your feedback is welcome.
You are either 1) completely ignorant regarding what a "Rockefeller Republican" is or 2) live on a different planet.
Which is it?
Trace
Please compute the costs of the Americans losing jobs because some foreigners are dumping their stuff on our markets. Please include in your calculations what the rest of us will be paying in unemployment benefits, all kind of assistance to the unemployed families, the costs the society would pay when some of the laid off workers are forced into crime, alcoholism, drug abuse. What society may have to pay as some of their daughters are forced into prostitution get infected with all kinds of VD's and help spreading them around, the effect on the GDP as these people's decreased incomes mean diminished spending power and therefore less demands for certain goods which, in turn, may cause other workers to be laid off with consequences that I outlined in this paragraph.
No, my friend, protecting our economy in the world market is a President's duty and it's what we want him to do. W does a poor job at it but he's done a tiny bit more than Clinton.
Oh give it up already. You've been caught in a lie and no amount of crawfishing is going to change it. Save face and admit it.
The 'free traders' reason as if the world economy was some kind of a 'perfect market' where people, goods, services and information move freely and efficiently and nations and states don't count. Of course, this is not the case. Some of our trading partners are our present or future enemies. Most other nations are protecting their own economies and while losing 1000 jobs here while gaining 1000 jobs in China may be a 'zero sum' on a global scale it happens to be a net loss for the U.S. and a net gain for China, helping this COMMUNIST regime get better at spreading its communist values internally and abroad.
Yea, I know...IS being IS and all that.
Competition drives prices down. This leaves more money available for other purchases.
No, it doesn't. Since those who made that product domestically are likely to lose their job or produce less and therefore earn less, they will make zero money. This will leave less money availble for other purchases. Especially when you add the price of social assistance and other things then society as a whole will have to pay to support these people and their family - money obtain by the state by taxing its own citizenry.
Did Linda Tripp have a job under W's administration? The answer: no!!!
See the compassion thing now?
What they don't understand is that when they tell those lies, they totally discredit their own position.
If their position had any merit it would stand on its own and they wouldn't have to resort to lies such as Linda Tripp was fired by Bush or Bush apologized to China, among many others.
And... we do not buy sneakers from China while selling them tractors. By now, the communists who rule China have already demanded that we built ONE tractor factory in China, learned from us how to make tractors efficiently and built 10 more tractor factories on their own. They are now selling us the tractors made by the factory we built while the other 10 factories are saturating the Chinese market to the extent that they no longer need our tractors. They will be using the money they get for exporting us the tractors to develop themselves other industries, especially hi-tech or those that would help them better outfit their army. And they will be selling us those sneakers too.
You know what the lie is. Your lie was that Bush fired Tripp. Your defense of that lie is to say that Tripp was not employed by the federal government during the Bush admin.
By your logic, then, I must have been fired by Bush as well, since I've never worked for the fed. gov.
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