BUSH'S REAL OPPOSITION: REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIVES

news/op/ed ^ | 3/28/2002 | Richard Reeves

[Texasforever]

Bush hasn't turned around any of those EO's Clinton was signing like crazy

Fitz before you make charges like that at least know your facts.

[RAT Patrol]

And I agree with all the conservatives listed in the above article, and Wesley Pruden, George Will, and Cal Thomas. I can add Thomas Sowell, though he didn't name Bush, who came out against all foreign aid and third world debt "forgiven" etc. These are the people I've always agreed with. My postions haven't changed. Some of Bush's positions have changed.

Anyway, I've learned some valuable lessons this week. It hasn't been a lot of fun but it has been valuable.

[hchutch]

So you would give the Presidency to a radical environmentalist (Al Gore) or a person who tried to nationalize one-seventh of the U.S. economy (Hillary) instead?

Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

[ex-snook]

Wonder how pursuing the goals of the New World Order is Conservative? "uniting conservative support by continuing to push the war on terrorism into far nooks and crannies of the whole world."

The real opposition to Bush is coming from the neo-consrvatives not the conservatives. World dictators will be long dead before they are a threat to us. Conservative Americans want to conserve America by using our troops and aid to build fortress America and not to bail out the rest of the world and end up with the fate of the British Empire.

[LS]

Chooser, I really am sympathetic to this. But you need to let it go. There is zero, hear me? zero support in government by either Dems (naturally) or Republicans to re-hash the Clinton crimes.

It is a plain old dumb political strategy. The Dems would bash conservatives with the "that's-all-they-have-is-to-attack-Bill-Clinton" club, and we'd get sucked into a debate over the last ten years rather than the next ten. Whatever the Clinton crimes were---and I think there were a lot---every single special prosecutor who has looked at the evidence has agreed that there just isn't enough to "hang" the guy or Hillary.

There is a time to let things go. In the 1880s, the Northern politicians finally quit "waving the bloody shirt," because there were more important things than reviving the Civil War---did you know that Cleveland even advocated pensions for SOUTHERN veterans? Imagine the hue and cry from the northerners!!! But the point is, you can't fight past wars and hope to win future elections. If you "be a chooser" to do that, do so without me. Cause it isn't going to convince a single voter out there, and will only make you look like a kook.

[vbmoneyspender]

It was the 1982 cuts that brought the top rate down from 50% to 25%

I think you are wrong about this. Here is what the Prentice Hall Documents Library says, in part, about the Tax Reform Act of 1986:

Other features of the Tax Reform Act of 1986:

Tax cut. The top marginal tax rate on wealthiest individuals was reduced 44% (from 50% percent to 28%). The marginal rates for leass wealthy individuals were also reduced, but not by as high a percentage. Tax reductions were said by some critics to underly the massive mushrooming of the federal deficit during the Reagan administration.

Here is the link.

[jwalsh07]

President Bush has got the water flowing in Klamath Falls. How many have sworn to vote FOR him in the next election because of that?

[RAT Patrol]

I don't disagree with the concept of incrementalism. I don't like gambling with the Constitution. I don't like being lied to. If that makes me too picky then that's life.

[Texasforever]

Not in that particular act no he did not raise taxes. He did raise the gasoline tax, federal park permit fees, excise taxes on tires and a host of other "revenue enhancements" that even today we are still paying. That is the fact and no matter what you say will not change those facts. The elder Bush's problem was that he actually called a tax a tax and he lost his base, Reagan was smarter and had more guile.

[Walkin Man]

Boy when these professional Republican politicians are running for office they swear up and down that they will protect the Constitution, defend the borders, lessen the size of the government, anything they think you want to hear just to get your vote. Then as soon as they win they take a HARD LEFT TURN! It makes me sick! Is this how a President with an 80% approval rating leads the country?? What will we get if his ratings fall to 60%, outright communism??

I get the feeling that it's all a big shell game, and the outcome will always the same regardless of the party! These cynical ba$tards must be laughing their heads off over the pain they are causing to the people who marched in the streets in support of the President! There isn't a dimes worth of difference between most Repub's and demoRats that I can see lately and it will be a cold day in July before I rally and protest again for a man that signs away my God-given right to free speech and makes jokes about it then rewards law breaking illegal immigrants and pumps millions of dollars into the stinking teachers unions with the help of Teddy(the swimmer)Kennedy!

As far as the next elections are concerned, unless things change in a big way, I'll be sitting them out because if the choice is demoRat leftist socialism vs Repub leftist socialism I vote for NONE OF THE ABOVE!

[LS]

You are flat wrong. First, Bush has issued three quiet but very important Ex Orders that have reversed 20 years worth of abortion rulings. One had to do with abortions on military bases. Just this week, the "privacy" reversal said that teens who went to a hospital for an abort had to have their parents notified. There was a third I can't recall, but I noted it when it happened.

Second, you are TOTALLY off on the significance of the welfare reform bill. Food stamps was a virtually meaningless part of it. The critical issue, which Bush is actually strengthening, is the end to AFDC, which broke up families. By combining that with "faith based," he has actually improved the GOP 1995 welfare bill.

[cva66snipe]

Thirteenth, we have created an anti-tax climate in this country that there was a genuine REVOLT in TENN when they tried to raise taxes,

Me thinks you best have another look see at this one. It is a RINO Friend Of Bush pushing the state income tax in Tennessee along with several other RINO's. The RINO's has been the Dems usefull idiot. Meaning a RINO is pushing DEM's Leglisation for them. Hardly a good idea in my book but is all too common in the GOP these days.

[RAT Patrol]

, the compromise on fetal stem cells was something Bill Clinton would do.

I agree with most everything you said but I thought he did fine on the stem cell issue. I would have preferred nothing, but that would not have saved any lives. He made an okay decision on that one, it's been downhill from there though.

[RamsNo1]

You seem to have one theory after another why both parties act the way they do. There are so many people that claim this strategery or that strategery that they eventually get caught in their own web of deceit no matter what party. Republicans and democrats are spinning so much these days that I can't tell who is who. From now on when Bush has to make a decision on policy, I'll wet me finger and hold it up to the wind to find out what he might do.

[Texasforever]

One other thing, the Reagan tax bill stopped all personal interest deductions other than on real estate, limited medical deductions and greatly reduced deductions for employee business expenses.

[Joe Hadenuf]

This IS NOT a Conservative administration, it's Republican. That's the point.<

[LS]

Just as I would caution the "purists" who ONLY want to elect a 1965-era Goldwater that there are few of those out there, I would caution you that the right guy (or gal) can still win an election on extremely conservative principles. BUT, the key is to make it sound "compassionate" and not harsh so the Dems can't label you as a racist/bigot/homophobe who hates old people.

Do I have a candidate in mind? Not really, but J.C. Watts is pretty conservative, and I think he would win a Senate seat; John Kyl of AZ is about as conservative as you get and he wins overwhelmingly.

I have said many times that I think Alan Keyes problem was that he, for whatever reason, refused to "work his way up" and pay his dues---like Forbes (who had money and Keyes didn't), he tried to jump in at the top. Keyes could likely win a House seat in the right district. But that would take more time than I think he wants to give it.

[Texasforever]

None. If it "ain't my or the highway" then it's the highway.

[LS]

Read what Moore wrote: it changed the BRACKETS to 15% and 28%, from Reagan's 25%. But both Reagan and the Dems thought at the time it was a tax increase---that is why they passed it. Again, read Reagan's OWN BOOK on how he viewed it at the time. We know from experience, though, that it raised the rate on MOST PEOPLE back from 25 to 28%!

[RAT Patrol]

I don't know why they keep praising the RATs like they're so clever. WE have the White House. WE have the House. WE were voted into the majority (by mean of the VP breaking a tie due to voter fraud in St. Louis) in the Senate but got stabbed in the back by a traitor. WE have a majority of the Governorships.

Why the heck do they keep saying we need to be bigger SNAKES just like the Dems?