Posted on 03/29/2002 3:08:59 PM PST by TLBSHOW
WASHINGTON --
It looks as if President Bush 's honeymoon is over. He's fine with the American people -- his personal approval rating is still in the 80 percent range -- but his own natives, Republican movement conservatives, are already restless.
Like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan before him, Bush is already being branded as an appeaser of liberals and a sellout on a range of issues dear to the right-side hearts of many of his party's faithful. These are, it must be mentioned, impossible people who, more often than not, prefer to lose on principle than win through compromise.
They hate Washington and all it stands for, which is compromise and government of all the people. Unfortunately for them, presidents, even their own, have to work in this town -- and that means compromising, however reluctantly, with the opposition in Congress and the vast bureaucracies of governance and liberal constituencies.
Like baseball, it happens every spring. This year, even with overwhelming conservative (and liberal, too) support of the president in our officially undeclared war on terrorism, there are the right's gripes of the moment:
The president from Texas, lusting for Hispanic votes in his own state and in California, is too friendly with Mexico, pushing amnesty for illegal immigrants from south of the Rio Grande and San Diego.
He has sold out free-traders by imposing old-fashioned tariffs on the import of foreign steel -- or he is just chasing Democratic voters in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
He may have been holding his nose when he did it, but he signed the campaign-finance reform bill pushed by Democratic senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and apostate Republican senator John McCain of Arizona.
As part of the war effort, he is advocating a 50 percent increase in the United States' minuscule foreign aid program. This one rebukes conservatives who were determined to set in stone the idea that there is no connection between poverty in the poor regions of the world and hatred and terrorism directed at the richest of nations, the United States.
He is pushing Israel to compromise in its endless war against the Palestinians in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank.
He is pushing education policy and legislation that would increase federal influence in states, counties and towns across the country -- a big no-no to movement conservatives.
He is not pushing tax cuts the way he did during the campaign, partly because war and educational reform cost huge amounts of taxpayer revenues. Most of this was bound to happen, and any ideological president, Republican or Democrat, is eventually forced to betray campaign promises and core constituencies. The only difference this time is that because of continuing public support for military action (and its high costs), Bush is beginning to take more flak from his own kind than from the loyal opposition.
In the conservatives' favorite newspaper, The Washington Times, political columnist Donald Lambro began a news analysis last week by saying: "President Bush's about-face on trade tariffs, stricter campaign-finance regulations and other deviations from Republican doctrine is beginning to anger his conservative foot soldiers but does not seem to be cutting into his overall popularity -- yet."
John Berthoud, president of the National Taxpayers Union, puts it this way: "We're very disappointed about these new tariffs on steel and lumber. That's two new tax hikes on the American people. ... There's a concern among our members that in his effort to build and keep this coalition for the war, which is certainly needed, he's given Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and the forces of big government a free pass."
Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Eagle Forum, added: "He's been getting a pass from us until now, but the amnesty bill is what tipped it over for us. I agree with Sen. Robert Byrd (a Democrat). This is 'sheer lunacy.' ... A lot of people thought Bush's education bill was terrible. But we didn't rant and rave about it because we wanted to support him on the war. That's changed. The amnesty bill is the hot issue out here. It's out of sync with what grassroots Americans want."
Finally, Stephen Moore, president of the conservative Club for Growth, said: "The danger for us is that Bush may begin to take the conservatives for granted, and you are seeing some signs of that happening with the steel tariff decision, foreign aid and other spending increases in the budget."
So it goes. There is nothing new about this. In the 1970s, William F. Buckley and other movement conservative leaders publicly "suspended" their support of President Richard Nixon because of what they considered his liberal moves toward welfare reform, tariffs and other issues considered part of the liberal domestic agenda -- to say nothing of his reaching out to communist China.
But in the end, Nixon kept them in line by pushing the war in Vietnam beyond reasonable limits. George Bush could accomplish the same political goal of uniting conservative support by continuing to push the war on terrorism into far nooks and crannies of the whole world.
Fitz before you make charges like that at least know your facts.
Anyway, I've learned some valuable lessons this week. It hasn't been a lot of fun but it has been valuable.
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Why the heck do they keep saying we need to be bigger SNAKES just like the Dems?
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