Republicans: The Big Government Addicts

Years ago when I first learned about politics from my father, I was taught that the Republican Party stood for fiscal sanity and the Democratic Party stood for tax and spend politics. Funny how some things change, but others just stay the same. Of course, the Democrats still stand for tax and spend politics. They continue to try to demagogue all the issues and pit one group of Americans against another. Republicans are supposed to speak out against that type of shenanigans, but instead they sadly imitate those politics.

Republicans are now for Big Government, just a little bit less than the Democrats. There seems to be no one on Capitol Hill actually interested in cutting the budget, so our budget surplus has magically disappeared and we are now faced with serious budget deficits once again. The economy has been in trouble for two years and many Americans have had to watch their spending and trim their own personal budgets. Why not the politicians in Washington D.C.? The stock market is in the dumps, but not the spending habits on the hill. MORE

Actually both parties have waffled in the wind for most of the past century. The reality is that most politicians have to be intimidated to do the right thing, because they are constantly being pushed by organized lobbies to do the wrong things. What you say about the Republican Party today is very sad, after the wonderful turnabout in the Reagan triumph. But if we are going to get back to principled politics, we need to understand how the "Reagan Revolution" was accomplished.

You need to go back to the elections of 1928 and 1932, and come forward from there. In 1928, the Republicans responded to Coolidge's disinterest in another term, by nominating a more liberal candidate--despite the New Deal smears later--Herbert Hoover. Although, late in life, Hoover in reaction to the Roosevelt excesses sounded more Conservative, he was basically a "Liberal," and indeed so described himself when he was appointed Food Czar during World War I by Woodrow Wilson.

After the Roosevelt triumph, and the great turn Left, when Roosevelt betrayed his own Conservative platform and brought known Socialists--as well as some outright Communists--into the Federal Government; the Republican Eastern Establishment pursued a "me too" but more moderately, sort of response. Thus you had the Dewey campaigns in 1940 and 1944, while midwestern Republican Conservatives gnashed their teeth. In 1952, it looked like the Conservatives would capture the nomination with Ohio's Senator Robert A. Taft, but the Eastern Liberals turned to General Eisenhower, and managed to narrowly beat back the challenge with a disasterous deal which put Earl Warren on the Supreme Court.

At first, the Eisenhower Administration seemed to be interested in reaching out to Conservatives, and even put Notre Dame Law School's very Conservative Dean Clarence Manion, on a special commission on intergovernmental relations, intended to study ways to make the Federal Government less intrusive into State matters. But Manion was soon fired for doing his job, at the same time the new Administration shot down the Bricker Amendment, which had been endorsed by two thirds of Congress, and which would have protected our Domestic institutions from any abuse of the Treaty power.

It was during the Eisenhower years that Barry Goldwater emerged, replacing Senator Taft, who died early in the Administration, as the Conservative spokesman among the grass-roots. It was the grass roots organizations--not the party regulars--which made Goldwater's rise possible. And by the time Kennedy was assassinated, Goldwater had pulled about equal to Kennedy in the polls. (That fact is over-looked today, in what followed. But it is a fact, and Conservatives were expecting to win in '64, when a combination of sympathy for the Administration, as a result of the assassination, and a deliberate sabotaging of the ticket by the Eastern Establishment of the Party, shot Godwater down.)

But in the grassroots uprising that won the nomination for Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan got his start. And it was a second wave of grass-roots stirring that won for Reagan in 1980.

The point is obvious. If you are not happy with the way the Republicans are drifting back under the "me too," but a little slower crowd, that ran the party into the ground throughout much of the 20th Century, the answer is in your own hands. Continue to speak out, and encourage others to do so also. We can achieve again, what we have achieved before.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

The problem isn't all Bush's fault, of course, since government spending has been escalating for many years, now. I think the Republicans in the House have tried to bring at least a little sanity to the levels of spending, but the Senate Republicans will have none of it. They are no better than the Democrats when it comes to tax and spend behavior.

The problem isn't just at the federal level, either; witness the TN income tax battle, which was instigated by a Republican governor. When state governments all around the country were spending money like drunken Kennedys during the go-go 90's, they should have instead been setting the money aside for the next downturn in the economy, which has been happening for the past 2 years. Better yet, they should have been returning that money to taxpayers via tax cuts. But most states chose not to do this, and now most of them are scrambling for ways to make up for budget shortfalls that have come about because of the excessive spending. Who says the best and brightest go into the public sector?

This article has it right, of course- rather than the governments doing the right thing by reigning in spending, it is always the taxpayers that must tighten their belts during an economic slowdown. Meanwhile, the fat-cat pols ride around in their limos and behave as if they are royalty, and blame capitalism for the ills of society. At the risk of sounding like a rabble rouser, increasingly, it is the politicians (or, political parties) vs. American citizens, and the bad guys are winning.

Perot is a despotic, egomaniac. Nader is a SOCIALIST , who has lied, hustled frauds, and who is also a NWO freak. Pat ? Oh give me a break ! If any , or all of the above appeal, then perhaps you deserfve to be perpetually upset/ unhappy b/ disaffected.

Insztead of claiming that the USA and its government, was as it is in your imaginings,or hopes and dreams, read what it was really like,in the words of contemporanious discolurseds. Didx you knolw, for sake of arguesment, that Noah Wwesbstedr, in his later years, complained vocifolrfously, that the government (we're talking 1800 , here ! )wasn't what it was supposed to be (Federalist / free / Constitutional Representative REPUBLIC ), and had he known, would have fought to keep us a COLONY !

Fringers can grumble all they cared to, make rash, unsupportabled statements here, live in their own dream worlds ; however, the alternatives offered by them, are far worse and utterly unelectable, than anything elses that is already out there. As for Conservatives " thought " , what somed people here, claim as Conservative,just isn't. Neither, for that matter, is this nation's population, all that Colnservatived; leastwise, what many profess it to be on this forum.

It is useful to remember that Bush was elected with less than 50% of the popular vote, in an election that turned on a few dozen contested votes give or take. In a nation of almost 300 million people, that is mind boggling.

The Senate is in liberal control, especially when you consider that a half dozen Repub senators consistently vote with the Demos. The House of Representatives has a microscopic Repub majority, but when you factor in the Repubs that vote Demo, even that majority evaporates.

With the marginal exception of maybe one major newspaper, and one TV outlet, and a few radio talking heads, the media is solidly socialist and statist in its orientation, aggressively so, to the point of dishonesty in its reporting.

This is the problem, and the solution is not abandoning Bush, but sending him some ammunition in the form of a conservative majority in congress. If we can't do that, then badmouthing Bush is just an empty exercise.

As for Conservative " thought " , what somed people here, claim as Conservative, just isn't. Neither, for that matter, is this nation's population, all that Conservative; leastwise, what many profess it to be on this forum.

Ah, you mean those who support policies like a brand new prescription drug vote-buying scheme that will cost over $300 billion, minimum.
Can you imagine? We're in a wartime deficit, and some here support an open-ended Great Society type program, and have the nerve to call themselves "Conservative."
The funny thing is, these "conservatives" always ignore the fact that the Democrats will always outpander them.

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