GOP Abandons Conservatives

As a libertarian with GOP leanings in elections where the LP doesn't have a candidate I found this pretty dead on whith how I think a lot of conservatives feel?

Any conservatives or Republicans care to comment?


GOP Abandons Conservatives

by Rep. Ron Paul, MD


The Medicare prescription drug bill passed by Congress last week may prove to be a watershed event for political conservatives in America. This latest expansion of the federal government, potentially the largest in our nation’s history, is firmly in keeping with the failed New Deal and Great Society programs of the utopian left. This leaves true conservatives, who believe strongly in limited government and identify with the Goldwater-era Republican party, wondering whether they still have a political home in the modern GOP. In the eyes of many conservatives, today’s GOP simply has abandoned its limited-government heritage to buy votes and gain political power in Washington.

The unfortunate truth is that the Bush administration, aided by a Republican congress, has increased spending more in three years than the previous administration did in eight. Federal spending has grown by more than 25% since President Bush took office. The federal government now spends roughly $21,000 per household every year, up from $16,000 just 4 years ago. Columnist Cal Thomas, in a recent article entitled “The Embarrassing GOP,” raises an excellent question: “How much of that $21,000 could you spend that would produce better results for yourself and your family?”

Consider that Mr. Bush has not vetoed a single bill, nor does he even bother to employ conservative rhetoric. Chris Edwards of the CATO Institute says this about the President: “I’ve never seen him give a speech in which he says government is too big and we need to cut costs.” Furthermore, the outlook for spending restraint during a second Bush term is nil: “When you have a president who has a bunch of his own spending initiatives like education and the Medicare drug bill, it makes it difficult for him to go out and say that Congress is being wasteful,” Mr. Edwards states.

Columnists have coined the phrase “Big-Government Republicans” to describe the current crop of free spenders now controlling the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives. Many of the president’s closest advisors are Big-Government Republicans, former leftists who have no qualms about spending huge amounts of money both at home and abroad to achieve supposedly conservative ends.

The irony is that conservatives suffered through decades of Democratic control of Congress, always believing that liberals were to blame for the relentless growth of the federal government. When Republicans finally took control of Congress in 1994, many saw an opportunity for a real conservative revolution. But first, conservatives were told, the Democratic administration had to be removed. In the meantime, spending continued unabated throughout the 1990s. When Republicans won the White House in 2000, another opportunity seemed at hand. The Senate, however, was still in Democratic hands – the last possible GOP scapegoat. Finally, in 2002 the GOP took control of the Senate and increased its majority in the U.S. House. Surely this was the moment conservatives had been waiting for! Yet the past year has seen more spending than ever, including the disastrous Medicare bill that will cost trillions over coming decades. The latest line is that the GOP needs a filibuster-proof Senate of 60 Republicans, and then, finally, the party can begin to implement a conservative agenda.

At what point will conservatives stop accepting these excuses? When does the conservative base of the GOP, a base that remains firmly committed to the principle of limited government, finally demand new leadership and a return to conservative values? Will conservatives abandon the party when they realize the GOP, at least under its current leadership, is simply not interested in reducing the size and scope of the federal government? With Republicans controlling the administration and the legislature, and nominally controlling the Supreme Court, the party has run out of other people to blame. One thing is certain: Republicans who support bigger entitlement programs and bigger federal budgets have lost all credibility as advocates for limited government.

December 2, 2003

 

have you guys ever noticed that the country just SUCKS with repubs in charge???

 

Republican tax reform gave us 44 million households that don't pay taxes. They can put the socialist agenda in place so easily, nobody complains. They called it "family values".

 

I'm also basically a libertarian with conservative leanings, and I agree. They are trying to be cute playing both sides of the fence and it could really cost them. The medicare boondoggle has basically exposed the whitehouse as being more opportunist than principled- the steel tarriffs suggested it but this confirms it flat out. If I were Bush I would kick Karl Rove's ass up and down Pennsylvania avenue and maybe even make a public show of firing him. With the bad policy being made behind the scenes, Rove has gone from a strategic asset to a credibility drain, and he deserves to get the heave ho in my opinion- no one likes a weasel.

They could make a comeback with serious efforts to privatize social security, but I'm not holding my breath. Hopefully the 'strategists' are smart enough to see which way the wind is blowing and get the ship turned around quick.

 

Three months ago I started a thread on that exact point:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21757

CAPITALISM: I used to think the Republican side was clearly better...
Voting Rebuplican used to be a no-brainer for me.

After all, I support Ayn Rand's ideal political system of capitalistic freedom, where people are free to create and produce, collectivism is shunned and individual rights are respected above all. The only legitimate role of government should be: Police, Military, & Courts of Law.

I thought (and still think) that liberals were out to create a welfare state, where the productive men of ability are sacrificed to the lazy & incompetant. Where need is rewarded & ability is penalized. I also thought that the Republican side was clearly the lesser of the two evils, and would be more inclined to preserve the capitalistic elements of our society.

So now that the Republicans have a triple-hold on government, controlling the House, Senate, and Presidency....what have they done for us?

First off, Government spending has become much worse. The government is increasing it's spending allowences far faster than the economy is expanding. The so called 'tax-cuts' are a joke when spending is expanding uncontrollably, the tax cuts are really just tax-defferments. We'll have to pay for all this eventually...with interest. Goverment is getting bigger, not smaller. The government prescription drug plan is probably the biggest new social program since Roosevelt's 'New Deal', and we'll all suffer the results. The 'Patriot Acts' show callous disregard for individual rights, and have the founding fathers of this country turning in their graves. Instead of fixing our existing apparatuses of national security, a brand new one has been created- the Homeland Security department. Global altruism(at taxpayer expense) is breaking new highs with Bush's African aid program. Bush's motives for invading & occupying Iraq (price tag: one billion dollars per week) are becoming suspect with the non-discovery of WMD's.

It just seems like we were better off with a (albiet slimy & dishonest) Democrat as president, with a Republican Congress to restrain him. Now it just seems like NOBODY is restraining our precipitous & rapid decline into STATISM.

I'd welcome comments from any devout Republicans here...

 

Very lucid post Rearden Metal. I agree with about 95% of what you said.

 

And who do you propose to be our next president? It's easy to criticize from your living room. I have been very critical of Bush and this administration and how they are spending money, but I think government is changing on both the right and the left. Both parties are trying to use money to get control of the country.

This administration is the most attacked administration in US history and they are using money to protect themselves from the left. Do I agree with it? No. But when you have Hollywood liberals meeting tonight to see how they can throw Bush out of power, and you have people like George Soros who is absolutely committed to spend whatever it takes to defeat Bush and then you have all these radical left wing TAX EXEMPT organizations like moveon.org and ACT, who are collecting millions in donations that are skirting our campaign finance laws.

Bush and the right are feeling this threat and are responding to it accordingly. I really wish we could fix the campaign finance situation in this country but until we do, both sides will spend whatever it takes to stay in power. Like it or not, this is reality.

 

I'm aware of all these pressures on the GOP, but I wish they'd stand on Gingrich's old principle of small government. If they have to become fiscal liberals themselves in order to fight off the Democrat liberals, we have gained nothing!

'We need to hand out entitlements to keep power' is not an excuse. In Orwell's Animal Farm, the pigs did the same sort of thing. They became so much like the old master, that you couldn't even tell the two apart. If the Repubs need to act like a bunch of socialists in order to keep power, they're just as worthless as the Libs who you blame.

Who would I want to be president? There's the ultimate Catch-22. The sort of man or woman who I'd like to see in the Oval Office seeks freedom, not power. The sort of person who should be president would never run for president-which is precicely why they should be president.

It's a circle of madness, I know...

 

Excellent analysis. Bush has been a big disappointment to me on almost every issue, but he is vastly superior to the Democrat alternative. Our choices are between a braindead party of big spenders (Republicans) and a bunch of lunatic socialists (Democrats). Not a very inspiring choice but not an especially difficult one either.

 

If someone were to ask you if you preferred to get punched in the face or punched in the kidney, which would you choose?

Both options suck. I'll take neither and vote Libertarian.