Shortly after Scott Brown’s victory, Michelle Malkin warned establishment Republicans not to crow:
January 19 was an amazing day for grass-roots conservatism. But the Beltway GOP should be warned against unjustified triumphalism. They were late to the game. Activists still haven’t, and won’t, forget the massive amounts of money Washington, D.C. Republicans wasted on Dede Scozzafava. . . .
The GOP brand is still damaged. And instant exploitation of the Brown win — see the NRSC website here — isn’t going to help matters. As I’ve said for many years, the Republican Party needs to clean its own house before it demands that the Democrats clean theirs.
While I think Michelle is a bit harsh on the GOP, I do agree she’s onto something. Still, while grassroots activists can win without the GOP, they can’t win by running against the GOP. The party needs show that it’s learned from past defeats as have candidates in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Other candidates can show they understand the unrest across the country by following my gal Carly’s lead and sign sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.
Now, it’s time to add a new pledge, let’s call it the “Tea Party Compact” where candidates for federal office sign an agreement not to support big-government solutions to various economic and social crises. We would draft language on health care reform, cap and trade, the various Democratic stimuli/bailouts and regulatory reform. Social issues would be taboo (for this compact), save perhaps a provision opposing federal funding of abortion.
And at the end perhaps a line, “If I break this compact, throw me out.”
Those who draft it must make the language clear so the compact does not preclude a signer from supporting real health care reform that would eliminate those regulations which reduce competition and drive up costs and provide for tort reform. But, it also needs to be short, simple and sweet no more than 300 words.
Depending upon what’s ends up being in this “compact” I could support such a move.
Any entrenched pol, Democrat or Republican should be made to explain why they should NOT be thrown out of office. With the bribes, corruption and out of control government, why Ma am should you remain in office?
Horrible oversite of banking, mortages, financial trading. Have each pol describe who their donations come from and what conflicts occur because of it. Every incumbent should be asked their net worth. To help us identify who is still in touch with the people.Not that rich people can’t serve but…Kerry and Rockefeller acting as guardians of the poor and downtrodden is ridiculous.
How about a questionairre, sent to all Republicans running for office, asking them the ways they will propose to shrink the size and scope of the federal government, returning money and power to the states and to the people.
Seems to be the most important issue to most supporters of the Republican party, but once in office, Republicans never shrink government, and never even talk about how they propose to do so.
I think it should be made a core campaign issue on which all Republican candidates must be forced to take a stand.
Other than at CPAC, I just can’t see the entrenched special-interests within the GOP Beltway-mafia embracing the Tea Baggers….especially the incumbent GOP members on the Hill, or their staffs. They see the Tea Baggers as a threat to their power and influence…and their carefully-groomed ties to the K-Street lobbyists. Nothing can be allowed to dusurb the status-quo and the revolving door.
The Tea Baggers need to start with fresh new faces at the Primary level…not to co-opt the incumbents and the compromises that would require. “Man the barricades….“
“once in office, Republicans never shrink government, and never even talk about how they propose to do so. ”
Do you have any idea why that is?
I am not asking for a recitation of the usual stuff – this happens far too often, as you point out, it happens ALWAYS – there must be some really fundamental reason for it.
Maybe a country that is ever-growing in population, in economic development, and, even more importantly, in inter-connectedness – simply needs an ever expanding government – at least to some extent.
Maybe you guys would have more success, and more eventual sense of accomplishment, if you really thought through what a necessary and proper role for government might be, how it might change over time – and then focus on making sure that government evolves in a proper way.
Rather than trying to oppose it in some absolute, or at least, at not well though out manner, and then face these inevitable disappointements, as your elected Republicans, once in power, realize that they can’t dismantle the government the way they promised without damaging the country.
OMG. Tano, you are a GENIUS! Tano, no conservative has EVER thought about government in those terms before!
end sarcasm.
In reality EVERY conservative has thought these issues through more than you Tardo,
Indeed, I doubt you had ever even heard the phrase “proper role of government” or considered its meaning before you started commenting on this blog.
Conservatives universally agree, and the American people overwhelmingly agree, that the federal government has exceeded its proper size and scope. They dont want a government that grows slower, they want a SMALLER government with smaller scope.
The reason Republicans have not been more successful with it is twofold
1. Power corrupts, and some Republicans have joined Democrats on the dark side where they seize power over others for their own enrichment. and
2. For the exact same reason that Obama and the Democrats are DESPERATE to pass Obamacare even though the vast majority of Americans oppose it…because once it passes, all Democrats need is 41 votes to prevent it from ever going away.
Exactly! And fresh faces in the party apparatus at the precinct level.
I heard a stat the other day that may explain the reason for the publics anger.
Unemployment amongst government workers currently is 3%, three percent!
Unemployment in the construction industry…….22%, twenty two percent.
When out of touch liberals ask, nah nah what would you cut….let’s equalize the pain. Arent’ liberals always asking why we don’t ask for sacrifice? Well let’s start with government workers mirroring the regular peoples unemployment.
“Conservatives universally agree,… they want a SMALLER government with smaller scope.”
Obviously. That is part of my point. Did you not read what I said?
Conservatives have been constantly screaming for SMALLER government. And they NEVER get it – no matter who, or how many, or how sainted (think Ronnie) they send to DC.
Your explanation is the usual mantra that I asked you to get beyond – because it really fails to explain. Sure, power corrupts. Everyone? If so, then there is no hope, so just give up.
And I dont see how your point 2 is a relevant answer to the question.
No, there must be a deeper reason for WHY it is that even St. Ronnie ended up growing the government – something beyond just corruption.
Just like the military needs to grow in sync with the size and nature of threats, so too the regulatory administration needs to grow in sync with the size and complexity of the economy. These are the issues that non-ideologues build into their notion of “the proper role of government”.
It seems that so many conservatives think that we can and should go back to a government that was sized appropriately for a late 18th century agrarian economy. No wonder y’all end up sorely disappointed. The pols who exploit your fantasies (you insist that they do so) are not going to dismantle America once they have positions of actual responsibility.
The GOP needs to run on a simple and easily explained agenda. It needs to be seasoned with a substantial amount of truth-telling (that’s the hard part). The American people need to understand some unpleasant truths (no free lunch for a start).
Core issues:
Economy, energy, Afghanistan (et al), immigration, and unfunded entitlement liabilities (the mother of all bombs yet to go off).
Tano – our ever-expanding government is growing far beyond our ability to pay for it and with little to show for the expense.
Tano – All Reagan could do was slow the growth of the gummint (a little) for a short time. The “deeper reason” is that congress was all too happy to go along with the candy (tax cuts) but loathe to hold up the other end of the deal (spending cuts).
It is a tough job. The bureaucracy has a life of its own and an army of clients with little to do other than agitate for bigger and bigger hand outs.
The problem we have now is that the discretionary part of the budget (that which can be somewhat controlled) has become small when compared to mandatory spending (entitlements and interest on the debt).
That’s where the truth-telling I mentioned comes in. We need to quit digging ourselves in deeper.
Great idea!
The Democrats gained power by obstructing the Republicans for eight years, then being “not the Republicans”. The Republican leadership may now be tempted to think they can do the same thing: that all they have to do to (re)gain majority power is obstruct the Democrats, then offer themselves as “not the Democrats”.
Well, insofar as the Democrats have been pursuing an agenda that is downright harmful for America, they have half a point. Merely blocking the Democrats’ ability to inflict damage is a start. It will win the Republicans a few seats, like Scott Brown’s.
But history shows that Republicans cannot come to majority power, either by imitating the Democrats or by merely being “not the Democrats”. Republicans only ever come to majority power by having a positive, moral and principled agenda.
What’s the difference? Why can the Democrats come to power merely by being “not the Republicans”, but, for the Republicans to gain majority power, they must offer the American people a principled moral core? The difference is, in a word, the media. The Democrats can get away with a lot – including intellectual and moral vacuousness – because the media covers for them. The Republicans can only ever break through the media’s anti-Republican filter by offering the American people something exceedingly good and real.
In the nine years of the Bush campaign and Administration, the Republicans betrayed their principles on domestic policy, and on a few aspects of foreign policy. In the name of “compassionate conservatism”, they caved in to the Washington elite viewpoint. They spent like
madmenDemocrats, fed at the public trough like pigs, meddled in State and local affairs ridiculously, and failed to protect America’s borders.As a result, the Republican Party betrayed the trust of the American people and destroyed the Reagan brand. Merely being “not the Democrats” is not enough to win back that trust. To regain majority status, the Republicans must prove themselves and do the slow, hard work of rebuilding their brand as a principled party of small government.
Been there, did that long ago. Answer: Police, courts and military are the three essential and legitimate functions of government. All other alleged functions of government are, in fact, neither necessary in reality, nor morally legitimate.
Of course you dont! And that is the very reason that engaging you is futile — because you are oblivious to what is blatantly obvious to everyone else. Nevertheless it IS obvious. Let me spell it out for you: once Democrats pass a program — like say, forcing banks to give loans to millions of unqualified losers who cant pay those loans back — they only need 41 votes to filibuster any attempts to reform it, as they did with Fannie and Freddie, causing the financial crisis. Democrats would rather destroy the country that give up power they have seized over people. Look at today’s SCOTUS ruling, restoring free speech — liberals are utterly apoplectic that their unconstitutional restrictions on dissent have been overturned!
P.S. To state Dan’s “Tea Party Compact” positively – the Republicans should commit not only to avoiding Big Government solutions to problems, but to enacting free market solutions to problems. Same thing, but stated positively as a moral principle. And then, of course, they must stick to it. Bush was ridiculous, the way he threw free market and capitalist principles to the wolves, at the very time America most needed leadership that would stick to them.
And of course, one of those government workers — Tano — has written no less than eleven comments to just this blog alone today, doubtless as well to others, during working hours, doing nothing other than obediently repeating the talking points of the Obama administration and telling us how his job of “regulation” is necessary.
In short, Tano believes the proper role of government is to spread political propaganda for Barack Obama and to belittle the very people whose tax dollars pay his salary.
Good that Carly signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Now that Tom Campbell has poisoned the race, I am seeing Carly in a better light. I believe that The New York Times, of all places, had an article recently about the Tea Party folks begining to lay the groundwork at the local level of the GOP. That is where it needs to start. And yes, the GOP establishment is damaged goods. But remember, it took a Ronald Reagan to fight the entrenched establishment of his day. So, as I have been saying, the GOP needs to embrace the Tea Party people and bring them in. And see how well they can do in the party rather than rambling about some futile third-party challenge. After all, we all agree that the government, at ALL levels, is out of freaking control.
I think your idea is an excellent one, Dan. And the pledge must be made for life.
There was a story, last year, that Chairman O took some bureaucrats out to lunch one day. He asked one guy who he worked for. After giving the name of his office, Obama had to ask what they did. I’d bet anything that a president could serve 8 years and still have no idea of all the offices, bureaus, divisions etc. and what they do.
Would a good leader or CEO not have any idea what all he presides over? That tells me that the government is too big.
Can you name them all and what they do without looking it up? Can you justify their existence and the ass loads of money we pay them every year?
I like how Tano has admitted his true aim, “an ever expanding government”.
Hitler and Mussolini would be proud, oh so very proud, of Tano.
Peggy may finally be getting it:
RTWT.
For all it’s many problems, one aspect of the Roman Catholic Church’s survival over three millennia has been it’s remarkably taut chain of authority; parishioner, priest, diocesan Bishop, the Pope, God. While it’s infilled with other priests, assistants, monsignori and semi-autonomous orders and conclaves…in the end it’s still just three layers of management.
Tano,
When the railroads were in their heyday of growth little towns sprang up all across America. Bigger towns grew at railroad junction points. The country could get its goods to far away places and Sears could ship a prefab school with all the desks and books into the far distant towns.
Then the interstate highway system, huge trucking firms and unions and even air transport diminished the role of the railroads. Spur lines were shut down. Small regional railroads went out of business. Small manufacturing was consolidated into large manufacturing. Small farms were swallowed up and became huge corporate farms and all across America the small town struggled for a reason to exist.
Thank God, the government didn’t try to come in and save small town America. When you fight the tide of powerful change you just throw good money after bad.
But, in the 1960’s, the government decided that it would embark on a campaign of “urban renewal” and public housing and food stamps and mass welfare to women who didn’t keep the father of the baby in the house. War was declared on poverty.
Nothing has sucked up more wasted tax dollars than this type of government meddling in people’s personal lives.
Much of the growth of government is well intentioned on paper and chaotic in practice. In the private sector, when you build an Edsel, you back paddle as soon as you discover that your bottom line is at risk. Obviously welfare is more complicated than a dud automobile, but the concept of evaluting, adjusting, and cutting out the bad initiatives is no different.
There are no temporary taxes or temporary programs where government is concerned. And, if you successfully unionize all the government employees, there is no way to shrink the public payroll.
General Motors was said to be a retirement plan which ran an automobile company. Well, government is a retirement plan with a taxpayer plantation and no end of payroll and entitlement growth in sight.
Helio,
Are you trying to say that the growth in government that people like you object to is all, or primarily welfare expenses?
What does the federal government spend on welfare? Much less than you imagine, I bet. When I was discussing the size of government, I meant the number of actual government agencies, and workers – and the levels of regulation.
Most of the federal government expenditures are for military, or for various insurance programs (like SS, Medicare etc). Less than a sixth is for regulatory or other governmental functions (education, transportation, science etc). Actual welfare – payments to the needy, are a small proportion, and very much a good thing (especially those that are investments, such as child care assistance, or school lunch programs etc).
‘There are no temporary taxes or temporary programs where government is concerned.’
That is obviously false. Y’all have had considerable success in cutting taxes – how can you claim that they are eternal? And there was major welfare reform in the nineties which rendered a lot of the welfare laws as “temporary”.
“if you successfully unionize all the government employees, there is no way to shrink the public payroll.”
Huh? That is ridiculous. Congress determines the size of the government payroll. Unions have no power whatsoever to negotiate the size of the workforce.
I think the problem is there is no compromise for either side when it comes to spending or cutting spending. At this point, Democrats won’t cut it and Republicans won’t raise taxes. Realistically, you won’t be able to cut spend to the degree it needs to get things in line with the deficit. You won’t be able to raise taxes enough either to do it, both sides have to give a little. I think most people would support some kind of tax increase if it came with spending cut, because the game of winner take all isn’t working.
Unions have no power whatsoever to negotiate the size of the workforce.
Obviously the silly Tano isn’t even reading his own leftist news sources.
According to industry analysts, the UAW agreed to the shutdown and sale of 20 factories and other facilities, employing 17,000 workers. Moreover, it granted the company further “exemptions” from contract language, which in the past required that automakers fill a portion of the positions left vacant by retirements and resignations.
In short, the union is dictating how many jobs and employees can be removed, and has already demonstrated that it can dictate how many people should be hired.
Perhaps if you really took time to read and understand the issue before commenting on it, Tano, you wouldn’t have these problems. But we know that your ideology blinds you to the facts and leaves you dependent on talking points provided you by the Obama Party.
Also, please explain to us how your government job where you are paid to post Obama propaganda on websites during work hours is a good thing for society. Indeed, it’s illegal, so you should explain why government workers like yourself who are paid to shill for Obama duiring work hours should be allowed.
The unfunded liabilities are all entitlements. Entitlements are welfare. The government giveth entitlements and they pay them by takething away by taxation. You got another slant on this, Tano?
What you include as “growth in government is plenty gross enough, but how do you get off with not including entitlements? Unfunded liabilites in entitlements alone are far greater than the world GDP.
Nice try, but you have no clue when it comes to federal welfare. SSI, Medicare, food stamps, block grants, revenue sharing, AFDC, EIC, Section 8, and on and on and on are huge, huge, huge.
Out biggest budget category is defense. Cut it out and it barely dents the unfunded entitlement liabilities. As they say: you can look it up.
Cutting taxes and eliminating a tax source are two entirely different things. We are still taxing your phone bill for wiring schools for the internet. You pay 23 separate federal taxes when you buy a loaf of bread.
Welfare reform in the ’90’s was excellent. Nothing was eliminated. How about some farm subsidy reform? How about smashing the milk, wheat and corn subsidies that Roosevelt created and enshrined? The largest farm subsidies are paid to resident of New York City.
You are really naive. The government is littered with people who are earning far above the government scale and not hired or approved by the Congress. I have received such pay myself. You can not fire a government worker unless you catch him setting fire to a minority in broad day light and laughing into the camera as he does it.
There is no such thing as zero based budgeting. Every government budget has growth built into it. If the government budgets for 10% growth and mean, nasty Republicans only approve 5% growth …. the Democrats immediately report that the Republicans have slashed Veteran’s Hospitals by 5%. You probably eat that tripe up like ice cream.
Every part of the budget, including defense, can be cut back. For instance, in the old days, soldiers in a US Army fort mowed the grass, built barracks, cooked meals, etc. Now they farm it out to the community. That endears them to the community and the community will fight to keep the fort (think factory) open and operating. But, if you had school drop-out yo-yos who are too unreliable or too dull to fight a modern war as a part of the service that gets the grass mowed and the potatoes peeled ……… you could teach them something and save money at the same time.
This is long enough ……….. but you have to figure out how to cut the money and still serve the mission. We do it constantly in the private sector. There is no will or crush for doing it in the government.
“The unfunded liabilities are all entitlements. Entitlements are welfare. ”
Social Security, the biggest entitlement, is an insurance program. You pay in (for today’s retiirees), you get out (from tomorrows). That is not welfare. Medicare too. In a welfare system, the recipients do not pay into the system, they just receive.
“What you include as “growth in government is plenty gross enough, but how do you get off with not including entitlements?”
Sure they can be included when you discuss the overall numbers. But they are a separate function from normal governance. SS is basically a money transfer system with a relatively small (and quite efficient) bureaucracy. What I call governance is the regulatory functions – when government actually does things that effect the course of our economy or public order or defense etc.
“federal welfare. .. are huge, huge, huge.”
No, they really are not.Around 3-4% of GDP, or less than 15% of the federal budget. LINK (I am not including SS and Medicare in that)
“You can not fire a government worker unless…”
That is hardly the point. The issue is whether unions can negotiate what the size of the government is, not whether or not it is too hard to fire an individual. Your claim was that there is no way to shrink the public payroll because of unions. Congress could vote tomorrow to eliminate the Dept of Education, for example, and poof, its gone, with all its workers.
“if you had school drop-out yo-yos who are too unreliable or too dull to fight a modern war as a part of the service that gets the grass mowed and the potatoes peeled ……… you could teach them something and save money at the same time.”
How does that work? It is cheaper to enlist a yo-yo – pay for all his food and shelter and training (and eventually his pension), and try to teach him something (hopefully a bit more than grass-mowing) – than to simply pay the local garden service to come in once a month with the mower?
These kind of outsourcings were institututed by fiscal hawks, precisely because they save lots of money.
Not if you have massive unemployment among the young and they are basically cluttering up the ‘hood between stints in jail.
Pinochet made it work like a charm in Chile and even the liberal governments after him have made the recipients work for their handouts. You assume that these people would be career lawn care on the government dime. But, they could also be students getting a post drop out education. Try thinking outside the government box.