Waiting for Fitzgerald

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Bottom line is that we need a real third party alternative.

I actually agree with this. Note that the last serious third party challenge was based on the need for fiscal discipline (and a guy with big ears).

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Where do you think all the social programs and pork receptacles came from? Harding? Taft? Hoover?

I am all for fiscal sanity. Let's start by having a not so great society. Then move to the Flat tax, and get rid of the IRS. A lot of the SEC can go, another drag on business. Department of Education, bye bye. And so on. Of course the liberals created all this crap and it stands as testament to LBJ. Along with a lot of dead kids from the war he lost.

Yeah, because Clinton had to do all those things to balance the budget.

Classic Wahhabi Republicanism -- find a Dem president to blame. You can't blame Clinton for Bush's destruction of the nation's fisc, and blaming Carter for deficits (which Reagan tried) became difficult, even for you, once the twelve-figure Repub deficits began stacking up year after year.... so you have to look back to FDR. No doubt it's his fault -- after all, a core principle of the New Deal was to start expensive social entitlement programs without raising the money to pay for them -- right?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
No - we just need to take our party back from the Fiscally irresponsible and the social reactionaries.

That ship sailed in 1980, and is moving ever further away.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
Yes - but I can outlast them. My great great grandfather was a Republican delegate from California at the 1876 GOP convention. I ain't going no where. Tenacity and persistencr beats passion every time (although it may take a while).

Stay the Course!


Maybe you really are a Bush Repub.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
No - but the Democrat party is farther from me than the Republican party. So my best chance is with the Republican party. When it comes to foreign policy I am a neo-conservative. I am a fiscal conservative and pro-free trade. I tend to be more extremem than many Republicans on these issues. On the other hand I am liberal on the social issues.

I may I have trouble in the Republican party but I am no where near the Dems.

So you are a social liberal who believes in things like balancing the budget, NAFTA, and sending troops to Kosovo to stop the genocide?

Yeah, it's easy to understand why you hate the Dems.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
Clinton only helped reduce the deficit by raising taxes.

Once again -- tax and spend beats borrow and spend, every single time.

It took a Republican congress to reduce spending.

what is the Repub congress doing now?

The recession caused the bulk of the deficits we have now.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. You people have been crowing about how the Bush tax cuts ended the recession and stimulated the economy. Yet the deficits continue to loom over us.

Either that's a crock of shit -- and you admit that, after five years, Bush's monetary policies have been an abject failure -- or the recession has been long over, and is not the cause of the ever-growing national debt. Which is it?

The deficits are the result of spending more than we take in. Very simple. Bush and the Repub congress made the problem worse on both ends of the equation -- spending increases plus massive tax cuts (and stupidly designed tax cuts to boot -- what the hell is the economic incentive created by eliminating the estate tax? Has anyone in history ever decided not to get rich because they were upset that they wouldn't have the money after they were dead? If anything, the estate tax promotes economic activity because people choose to spend money so they can "die broke", as the book title says.)

No matter how bad it is now, it will always be worse with Dems. Demns only talk fiscal conservatisim to attack Repubs but they never act on it when they are in power.

Clinton may not have been a fiscal conservative, but he certainly exercised fiscal prudence. We haven't seen any in five years now.

There is never any reason to raise taxes. The way to fiscal sanity is through spending cuts. If there is one thing Dems can't do is cut spending.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Clinton raised taxes and balanced the budget. End of story.

And if you still blame Dems for increases in spending, after five years of total Repub domination, you are delusional. The earth is flat.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Spanky
The Dems controlled congress for decades and they never balanced a budget. It took a Republican congress to balance the budget. The recession pulled us out of it, but we will see if we get back.

It took a group of principled conservatives controlling the House of Representatives, and forcing compromises on both the Dem. Senate and the Dem. President to get a balanced budget. it was sustained even when the GOP took the Senate. The Congress had a foil to oppose, and the conflict held down spending.

Now we've seen what happens when the GOP controls all three branches of government, and power has replaced principles in the Congress. The GOP discovered that strictly principled folks tend to be hard to get along with -- and to get reelected over a sustained period of time. Delay is much more interested in being in charge and in cutting taxes than in anything else.

Also, Spanky -- the administration's own reports in 2002-03 (I believe) said that the deficits were 1/3 due to the recession. The other 2/3 were divided roughly evenly between the tax cuts and spending increases.

S_A_M

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Have you factored in the economic costs from the terrorist attacks that seem to flow from Democratic Admins?

Silly boy. You thought that Paigs and Penske would have to leave to make you the least coherent.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
This is rich - coming from a party now dominated by Howard Dean and which last ran for President a French socialist named Jean Kerri

You're right, Slave. Upon reflection, I've realized that moderates, libertarians, and fiscal conservatives are alive and well in the Grand Old Party, and the vibrance of their influence is reflected in current social and fiscal legislation, and that religious constituencies and K Street money power really don't have as much impact on the Bush Administration and this Congress as some people might think. You agree, no?

I really don't know what came over me to consider critizing Republicans in this respect.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Have you factored in the economic costs from the terrorist attacks that seem to flow from Democratic Admins?

I don't think either Replaced_Texan or Even/Odds can be conclusively linked to any terrorist activity.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by baltassoc
I don't think either Replaced_Texan or Even/Odds can be conclusively linked to any terrorist activity.

Her real friends, those of us who've known her for years, call her RT. Right Shifter?

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Her real friends, those of us who've known her for years, call her RT. Right Shifter?

I see. You are so old skool.

[Captain]

Originally posted by Gattigap
You're right, Slave. Upon reflection, I've realized that moderates, libertarians, and fiscal conservatives are alive and well in the Grand Old Party, and the vibrance of their influence is reflected in current social and fiscal legislation, and that religious constituencies and K Street money power really don't have as much impact on the Bush Administration and this Congress as some people might think. You agree, no?

I really don't know what came over me to consider critizing Republicans in this respect.

In any two-party system, a ruling party has to be a coalition of different forces, and a good example can be seen in the Supreme Court picks. Roberts is a moderate conservative, and not a particularly appealing candidate to the religious right, for example. But the religious right, as one of the Republican coalition members, has to get some victories. It's the only way to build a coalition. So loyal Republicans, to keep winning elections, will need to continue to be willing to give the religious right some important victories. It does not mean every Republican has to be a member of the religious right, but at least the office holders will need to support some of the religious right's causes.

Should I go back to the Captain Obvious avatar?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by baltassoc
I see. You are so old skool.

2

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Captain
In any two-party system, a ruling party has to be a coalition of different forces, and a good example can be seen in the Supreme Court picks. Roberts is a moderate conservative, and not a particularly appealing candidate to the religious right, for example. But the religious right, as one of the Republican coalition members, has to get some victories. It's the only way to build a coalition. So loyal Republicans, to keep winning elections, will need to continue to be willing to give the religious right some important victories. It does not mean every Republican has to be a member of the religious right, but at least the office holders will need to support some of the religious right's causes.

Should I go back to the Captain Obvious avatar?

Perhaps so, yes.

Your epistle about the vagaries of coalitions is true as far as it goes, though we appear to differ about which factors of the Republican coalition are in ascendancy and which are in decline.

Your post suggests that the religious right is a force that needs to be tended and occasionally placated, but doesn't run the joint. I believe that today's edition of the GOP is a fine example of money power marinated in social conservatism. Attribute it to shifting coalitions if you must, but regardless it is a political cocktail that I find particularly unappetizing.

Gattigap