Posted on 02/09/2008 8:35:27 AM PST by rob777
Before my more conservative friends start leaping from buildings over Senator John McCain’s presidential primary victories, let me try to coax them back in from the ledge. Despite his myriad apostasies (e.g. McCain-Feingold’s free-speech limits, anti-ANWR-oil-drilling votes, a mixed tax-cut record, creeping Kyotoism, and cold feet on waterboarding), the Arizona Republican could do for fiscal responsibility what Ronald Reagan did for tax relief.
Thanks to the Gipper, tax reduction is as central to the Republican faith as the Resurrection is to Christianity. True, McCain heretically opposed President Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. However, he now appears penitent and observant. He proposes to make Bush’s tax cuts permanent and slice corporate taxes from 35 to 25 percent, among other reforms.
But in terms of limited-government, today’s GOP recalls the Roman Catholic Church’s excesses before the Reformation of 1517. For nearly a decade, Republicans have indulged in a spending bacchanal that shredded their moral authority and shocked Republican true believers. Like a latter-day Martin Luther, a President McCain may nail his own “95 Theses” to the U.S. Capitol’s front door and shame Congress, before it spends again.
Cato Institute researcher Michael Tanner cites White House figures to illustrate how Washington’s spending has waned and waxed since 1980. Under President Reagan, overall federal outlays decreased from 22.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product, to 21.2. On President G.H.W. Bush’s watch, spending increased to 21.4 percent. During the Clinton years, expenditures fell to 18.5. And during President G.W. Bush’s tenure, spending boomeranged to 20.7 percent of GDP.
“Reagan had a Democratic House to contend with, so anything he achieved was to the good,” Tanner explains. “The elder president Bush was sort of a non-event. Clinton and a Republican Congress represented the most fiscally conservative period. And this President Bush and a Republican Congress were a disaster.”
McCain largely has refused to be led into temptation. He supported 2001’s $143.4 billion No Child Left Behind Act, but fought 2002’s $180 billion farm bailout, 2003’s $558 billion Medicare drug entitlement, and 2005’s $286.4 billion highway bill, which contained 6,371 earmarks worth $24 billion.
“Those were the four biggest budget-busting bills of the Bush presidency,” notes Heritage Foundation fiscal analyst Brian Riedl. “And McCain voted against three of them.”
Wouldn’t it be refreshing for a President McCain, at last, to give America’s farmers the straight talk they so richly deserve?
“My friends,” McCain might declare before some Mid-Western barn, “when it rains, you cry for flood relief, and it cascades in. When the skies are cloudless, you scream for drought assistance, and it arrives. When your prices are low, you demand help, and the checks soon follow. Since last January, corn prices have climbed 123 percent. Soy beans are up 176 percent, and spring wheat has risen 274 percent. And yet Washington stands ready to grant your howls for $286 billion in yet another farm-welfare bonanza. Enough already. Please stop farming the government and go till your fields. The party is over. The trough is empty. Goodbye.”
Hayekian fantasy? Hardly.
McCain courageously opposed the wasteful, environmentally destructive federal ethanol program -- while battling his Republican rivals in Iowa.
“I will open every market in the world to Iowa’s agricultural products. I’m the biggest free marketer and free trader that you will ever see,” McCain said at the December 12 Des Moines Register debate. “And I will also eliminate subsidies on ethanol and other agricultural products. They are an impediment to competition. They’re an impediment to free markets. And I believe that subsidies are a mistake.”
McCain has stayed tightfisted on the hustings. According to a January 29 National Taxpayers Union study of presidential candidates’ promises, McCain wants $6.9 billion in new spending. Former Massachusetts governor Willard Mitt Romney favors $19.5 billion in fresh outlays. “Free-market” Romney’s automated phone calls in Florida actually slammed McCain because he “voted against the AARP-backed Medicare prescription-drug program.” Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee advocates $54.2 billion in government-funded initiatives. Romney’s ideological gymnastics and Huckabee’s folksy profligacy should worry taxpayers.
“You would not have to look hard for reasons to dislike McCain,” says Cato’s Michael Tanner. “But if spending is what you care about, he is far more conservative than either Romney or Huckabee.”
McCain is a Conservative Republican. You’re a Movement Conservative. That’s the distinction, and I think it’s time to go back to that distinction, the way it used to be, because we’re in this situation now where some folks are claiming that Conservatism is a far smaller group than it actually is.
I consider myself a small c conservative (I am not a Republican and never have been), and I accept that I am not a Movement Conservative, I reject the notion that I am not a conservative because I don’t agree with Movement COnservatives 100% of the time.
To me, McCain’s demand in 2001 that the Bush tax cuts be paired with spending cuts was the true conservative position, and Bush’s acceptance of massive spending plus tax cuts was a betrayal of conservatism.
I don’t get why McCain is so hated when the guys that really screwed Movement Conservatism are the Neocons who hijacked the movement and tarnished the brand.
“What are we going to do about it now???”
Most likely lose in a landslide reminiscent of Reagan/Mondale. Then...the party needs to do some major restructuring of it’s primary system before ‘12. Move strong conservative states to the front. Only these states can be winner-take-all. Iowa, New Hampshire, New York.....all to the back.. Give the more reliably conservative states more than half of the delegates needed to win. Close all the primaries, NO indies, NO dims.
Perhaps then that party would put forth their first conservative candidate since 1984.
..I agree the poor primary system is a large part of what got us here now. It does need to be changed ASAP so we don’t have this situation again. We need to learn from our mistakes of surely we will make them again.
Unfortunately, McCain can't even live up to fiscal discipline with his willingness to offer nothing but freebies ranging from Social Security to free healthcare and free schooling for the illegal invaders.
And it doesn't help that Mr. McAmnesty has Juan "La Raza" Hernandez on his payroll. That in itself speaks volumes to McAmnesty's intention of telling Americans to "calm down" while he rolls out the red carpet for illegals.
Congratulations
He commanded a bellybutton? Whoa...
To me, McCain’s demand in 2001 that the Bush tax cuts be paired with spending cuts was the true conservative position,
Not so sure about that. Last I saw, "Conservative Republicans" didn't champion the abrogation of First and Second Amendment rights, favor embryonic stem-cell research (essentially pro-abortion advocacy), nor did they roll out the red carpet for illegal invaders or put La Raza drones on their payroll.
McCain is not a "conservative" by anyone's definition except in the eyes of the far-Left Democrats and their media lackeys.
McCain is not a "conservative" by anyone's definition except in the eyes of the far-Left Democrats and their media lackeys.
Melanie Morgan mentioned yesterday that he had Tides Foundation advisors on his campaign staff, but didn’t name names.
“McCain largely has refused to be led into temptation.”
Right!!
This boneheaded move won’t cost the taxpayer.....
Bill to improve health care…in Mexico! McCain strikes again!
http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2008/02/bill-to-improve-health-carein-mexico.html
The record:
Voted against Bush tax cuts twice (only 2GOP / with Lincoln Chafee)
…stated due to “tax cuts for the rich” typical liberal class warfare
Voted for Ruth Bader Ginsberg…
…but formed Gang 14 to prevent Bush’s appointments
McCain - Feingold : against free political speech hurt GOP
Voted against ANWAR drilling
Supports Gore’s radical Global Warming approach
McCain - Kennedy amnest for illegal immigrants
Against Arizona Prop200 requireing ID to vote/collect welfare (passed with 46%Hispanics)
Open borders advocate/advisor VincenteFox Juan Hernandez in campaign
Close Gitmo, allow POW US court access
Supports 50cent has tax hike for global warming
Against Reagan’s Freedom Fighters in Nicarauga / El Salvador
Tie the hands of the CIA be legally redefining waterboarding as torture
Hasn’t been to CPAC in many, many years
Also NoShows: Club for Growth, Heritage Foundation
BTTT!
Not to mention the amnesty fiasco which would billions and billions for all the benefits and freebees for the families of our “new” citizens.
You'd think people would have learned their lesson after supporting Schwarzenegger who, true to prediction, has been nothing but a Kennedy with an 'R' by his name.
I am doing the same thing. Another poster pointed out that if we go to the polls and leave the presidency blank or vote for a Dem or write in a candidate(doesn’t matter) but then vote down the line for Repubs, this will show the power of the conservative vote and perhaps next time we will be able to vote for and acceptable candidate. The rigged primaries anointed McCain before many conservatives could even vote as planned by country club Repubs. I am taking a stand now.
Yeah!! This author has it right!! McCain will impose Fiscal Discipline in Washington after he stops the building of the fence and allowing Latin America to come into the USA and send the medical cost so high man will not be able to count the loss..........I am spewing with revulsion
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