Worrisome Words
Fred Barnes reports that, according to pollster Frank Luntz, if there's not some course correction, Republicans could be facing some very ugly electoral prospects next year.
It's time for The White House to move on two big topics that have been either soft-pedaled or sidelined: Reducing the size of government and illegal immigration. Both are good policy; they're also good politics. The former is a way for the President to reach out to disgruntled conservatives within his own party. The latter is a way to assure blue-collar voters that Republicans understand the problems for them that are posed by a "reserve army of the unemployed" continuing to stream over the border (aside from the additional national security risks).
Let's get on it. Does anyone really want to see a "Speaker Pelosi"?
It's time for The White House to move on two big topics that have been either soft-pedaled or sidelined: Reducing the size of government and illegal immigration. Both are good policy; they're also good politics. The former is a way for the President to reach out to disgruntled conservatives within his own party. The latter is a way to assure blue-collar voters that Republicans understand the problems for them that are posed by a "reserve army of the unemployed" continuing to stream over the border (aside from the additional national security risks).
Let's get on it. Does anyone really want to see a "Speaker Pelosi"?
posted by LadybugUSA at 9:39 AM
2 Comments:
I'll let other minds take on immigration (Malkin, anyone?), but one thing much easier said than done is the size of government.
Entitlements or spending bills are much easier to enact than to rescind. This Alaska bridge would never have had money appropriated if the bill came up for the first time after Katrina. Since it was approved before Katrina, it appears to need a miracle to divert the funding. And that's just one bill. Couple that with this compassionately conservative president, and I don't see how spending goes down.
Has anyone every seen a pie chart of Government outlays. Check it out sometime. It is VERY enlightening. HUGE slice for Military spending, HUGE slice for interest on the debt, the majority that's left is the remainder of entitlement programs that haven't already been cut (and would probably be political suicide to do so).
We keep talking about reducing the size of government (i.e. outlays) but you have very, very little to play with. You CAN'T cut interest on the debt unless you want the U.S. to default on its obligations.
How many of you want to cut defense? Didn't think so.
The reality is we keep cutting taxes but without cutting defense or reducing the deficit we are merely creating a larger outly in the form of interest (transfer payment to our friends in China who are our biggest creditors).
I don't have any great suggestions except that the argument shouldn't be politicized. We scream about all these programs the elimination of which won't even make a dent in total outlays.
At this point "tax and spend liberals" doesn't pass the smell test anymore. And it doesn't get us any closer to a solution.
If we don't address this in an effective and bipartisan fashion soon, terrorists will be the least of our worries.
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