[Inkie]

That's all well and good, and yes, it would be nice to have a Reagan or a Gingrich rearing to go. But we don't. So you can make a choice. More of Leahy and no Bush judge nominees, or Orrin Hatch and a chance at bringing the bench back in the direction it was meant to be. The Senate is the key. The Republican party is the stupid party when it appeases the left, but it is also the stupid party when it says, "If I don't get everything my way right this minute, I'm going to take my vote and go home." That is a way to get Democrats FOREVER. And if you don't think there's a difference between Paul Wellstone and John McCain, then you need to study up. As Thomas Sowell says, it's all a matter of where you draw the line. Perhaps you draw the line before I do, but my line is closer to your line than the enemy's line. You can argue the purity of everything if you want, but in practice, we are just going to get ourselves into a position of NEVER having power. It's sort of like the postmodernists saying if a culture is not perfect, it is therefore bad.

Occasionally, we need to take the same tack as the Fabian Socialists. Only in the opposite direction.

[B. A. Conservative]

There is a definite difference between wishful thinking and the science of change. Change begins at the margin and gradually spreads toward the mainstream. If you want to change the course of America, particularly a 180 degree turn to the right, appealling to the left or to the middle is definitely not starting at the margin. I am far enough to the right to definitely be at the margin, and the bell-shaped curve tells me that there are other marginal voters who should be as committed to restoring the Constitution as I am. When election margins are close, marginal voters become far more important. For the sake of argument, let's draw the line you are referring to at 95%. By that I mean 95% of all voters are to the left of the group that I am appealling to with the Contract with Congress. If I could reach and persuade only 5% of all voters to adopt the Contract with Congress, it would be an absolute certainty that we could dictate the entire Republican Party Platform. Why? Because it would be impossible for virtually any Republican candidate to be elected without our support.

In very close elections as we have been experiencing for a decade now, I might have to reach and persuade only 1-3% of traditionally Republican voters or considerably less than half of the 5% of all voters discussed above. There are already 1-3% of voters that have left the Republican Party and joined the Libertarians and other Constitutionally oriented parties. By the time the 2004 election rolls around, we might have our 5% of all voters.

As for the current election and the immediate effects of winning or losing, your time oriented goals are both in need of realignment. In the long term scope of things, judicial appointments are significant. But with the exception of the Supreme Court appointments and those to the Circuit Courts of Appeal, it will take a decade or two before any relevant changes can occur. But even the Supreme Court appointments will have limiting influences. Liberal judges have no trouble legislating law from the bench. Judges who respect the Constitution are not going to legislate. At best they will change one unconstitutional law at a time. Your time horizon says that it took us 70 years to get to the awful state that we are presently in and that it could well take 70 years to get back what we once had.

It is delusional to believe that the United States will continue to exist in its present incarnation for 70 more years. I believe that if you will examine the evidence for yourself, that you will find that it is wishfull thinking to believe the United States can last 20 years.

The unfunded liabilities of Medicare begin maturing in 2008. The baby boom generation starts reaching the minimum Social Security retirement age in late 2008. The unfunded liabilities of Social Security begin maturing in 2012. And the boomers reach Medicare eligibility in 2011. The unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security are estimated to be roughly 12 trillion dollars. The current debt exceeds 6 trillion and will exceed 8 trillion by 2012. Current GDP is roughly 10 trillion and the federal budget is roughly 2 trillion. Assuming 3% annual growth in GDP (extremely optimistic in my opinion), in 2012 we are looking at a $13.5 trillion economy. At 5%, interest payments for the United States government will equal half of all current federal revenues and federal deficits will be ballooning. I will ask the doubters four questions:

• Who will finance this profligate debtor?
• And at what rate?
• Who will this debtor tax to make payments on these debts?
• And at what rate will they be taxed?

All democracies throughout history have ended in bankruptcy. When voters discover they can vote themselves payments from the public treasury, Pandora's box has been opened. The XVIth and XVIIth Amendments (both ratified in 1913) brought the US much closer to a democracy than to the republic given to us by the Founders. Prior to the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913, federal tax revenues never exceeded 6% of GDP as opposed to our current 20%. The 1912 dollar bought 99 cents worth of 1789 goods and services. In the US today, two out of every three dollars spent by the federal government are payments to individuals or groups for which no products are delivered or no services rendered. The 2002 dollar buys 5 cents worth of 1913 goods and services. The US began life with debts from the Revolutionary War of $75 million (that's right million with an M), but had reduced that to a mere 38 thousand dollars by 1836. The debt ballooned to a staggering 3 billion (that's billion with a B) after the implementation of the Federal Reserve and WWI. By 1965 it was a mere 325 billion when LBJ began cranking up the War on Poverty reaching the first trillion by 1981 and the second trillion by 1986. And we are still adding roughly a trillion every five years.

Look back at your answers to my four questions. If we do not turn the United States around a full 180 degrees within the next three election cycles, there will be no Presidential election in 2016. It is not politically possible to tax Americans sufficiently to pay the unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security while financing our existing deficits. There are only two ways these unfunded liabilities can be met:

• Substantial additional borrowing; and
• Running the printing presses to create more dollars out of thin air

When the "full faith and credit of the United States" is a meaningless term and no one will accept dollar bills in exchange for goods and services, like all other democracies throughout history, the United States will be bankrupt. That day is going to arrive before 2016.

Government taxes exceed the cost of housing, food, clothing and transportation for almost half of all American families. The NASDAQ bubble has burst. The DOW and S&P bubbles are rapidly deflating. The dollar and bond bubbles are precarious. The credit bubble is still inflating thanks to Americans who are taxed to the point of having to borrow to meet daily living expenses. Look at your four answers again.

Change begins at the margin. I am at the outer limits of the margin. Change has begun. America's future is the Contract with Congress. Or the United States' future will come to an abrupt halt before 2016. Your 70-year time line went up in smoke with the NASDAQ.