Politics: May 2003 Archives
In other words, the GOP has to starve the government to stay in power. (Which is the opposite of FDR aide Harry Hopkin's mantra, "tax tax tax, spend spend spend, elect elect elect." ) It's far easier to cut taxes than to cut government programs. So the GOP will try to cut taxes every year that George Bush is president, without cutting many programs whole hog. The debt will pile up, of course, and eventually, it'll bankrupt the government, especially the two most popular entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare. Since conservatives hate those programs, they don't mind, especially if it precipitates them being privatized. And they probably won't be held responsible by voters for the country's fiscal disaster, because Democrats will be trying constantly to restore federal spending -- so it'll look like it's at least partially their fault.
TAPPED nicely sums up the Republican strategy behind the tax cuts.
Yet Prof. John J. Pitney, a Claremont College political scientist, said: "In the past couple of years, I think we've seen a shift from rough parity to a slight Republican advantage, which I think reflects a shift in public interest to national security, which Republicans own. If you think about bombs and rockets most of the time, you're probably going to vote Republican."
A very good article in the Times about the Republican plans to sew up long-term dominance in the 2004 election. If the concept presented bothers you, it's time to get involved! Don't let the Republican's own national security!
The American people agree with us on many vital issues--but they believe that we Democrats are weak and indecisive when it comes to standing up to dictators and terrorists, and when it comes to the primary responsibility of government: defending the nation. No matter how compelling our positions on the economy, health care, Social Security, the environment and privacy, if voters continue to see us as feckless and effete they will not listen to our message next year and they will re-elect Mr. Bush.As we prepare to mount our challenge in 2004, Democrats need to return to the muscular national security principles of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and the other Democrats who understood that only by confronting threats abroad could our party achieve its other great mission of expanding equality, opportunity and progress here at home
An important "call to arms" for the Democrats in an op-ed from Donna Brazile - Gore 2000 campaign manager, and Timothy Bergreen - founder of Democrats for National Security.
Supporters of making dividends tax-free like to paint critics as promoters of class warfare. The fact is, however, that their proposal promotes class welfare. For my class.
Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world, calls a spade a spade in a Washington Post editorial.
Oh yeah, George Soros, one of the other richest men in the world, is pissed too:
"I have to disclose that I now have a short position against the dollar because I listen to what the Secretary of the Treasury is telling me," Soros said in the CNBC interview.He was referring to recent remarks by U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow, who has recently suggested that he was unconcerned by the dollar's sharp decline. Soros criticized Snow's apparent shift away from the strong dollar policy as a "mistake."
Finally on the economic front, The Daily Kos thinks that the Democratic Party should be the party of the socially liberal/fiscally conservative center of the country - those currently pulling the Republican's to the left and the Democrat's to the right:
I've made hay about how the GOP is actually BAD for fiscal responsibility -- how both Bush presidencies have been marked by record deficits. How GOP governors are currently leading the way with tax increases while most of their newly elected Dem counterparts avoid raising taxes. How the stock market performs best during Democratic administrations.But the myth persists that the GOP is a better steward of the taxpayer's money. Reality is quite different. Those days are long past, the roles reversed.
Ha ha! Texas governor Rick Perry, desperate to drag hiding Democrats back into Austin to pass DeLay and Rove's re-redistricting plan, asked New Mexico for permission to send in Texas rangers to arrest those Dems hiding in that state.
From the Daily Kos, it looks like some of the Texans have fled to New Mexico. Democratic state officials in both NM and Oklahoma are refusing to help get the legislators back to Texas. New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid:
"Some are speculating this request from the Texas Governor's office concerns an effort to locate missing Texas House Democrats," Madrid wrote. "If so, Texas should understand that since ski season is over, the Santa Fe Opera has not begun and President Bush was just in town, I don't think they are in Santa Fe now. Nevertheless, I have put out an all-points bulletin for law enforcement to be on the look out for politicians in favor of health care for the needy and against tax cuts for the wealthy."
The Texas Department of Public Safety is asking the public for assistance in locating 53 Texas legislators who have disappeared. Anyone who has information regarding the current whereabouts of the legislators listed below is asked to call 1-800-525-5555.Under the Texas Constitution, the majority of members present in session in the House can vote to compel the presence of enough members to make a quorum. Members of the House did so this morning and directed the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House and the DPS to locate the absent members and bring them back to Austin.
DPS troopers and investigators are searching for the absent legislators.
Following on the tail of Colorado's own Karl Rove inspired GOP-friendly redistricting comes a similar attempt by the GOP controlled Texas legislature. The Democrat's aren't taking it though. They're preventing the quorum required for a vote on the plan by hiding out en masse in a Oklahoma motel just across the border. The Texas Rangers are looking for them. More coverage at Political Wire.
Perhaps the most disheartening development of the war -- at home, anyway -- is the number of liberals who have allowed Bush-hatred to take the place of thinking. Speaking with otherwise perceptive people, I have seen the same intellectual tics come up time and time again: If Bush is for it, I'm against it. If Bush says it, it must be a lie. Their opposition to Bush has made liberals embrace principles -- such as the notion that the United States must never fight without U.N. approval except in self-defense -- to which the Clinton administration never adhered (see Operation Desert Fox in 1998, or the Kosovo campaign in 1999). And it has made them forget that there are governments in the world even more odious and untrustworthy than the Bush administration.
Amen. Assuming that anything Bush is for must be bad takes the exact amount of brain power the left accuses the right of using when taking everything Bush is for as good. At one point, the left appreciated nuance - what's happened?
At 11:30 p.m. last night, Senate Republicans passed their just-unveiled US House redistricting bill on an 18-0 vote after the body's 17 Democrats walked out in protest. Attorney General Ken Salazar announced his office will fight the measure in court.
Looks like the Republicans are using the media distraction of the Denver elections to solidify their congressional hold. I now live in a solidly red 7th CD.
"I've concluded that I do not have sufficient enthusiasm for the mechanical side of campaigning, the money, the media and the polling and so forth to go forward with a campaign," Hart said in a telephone interview.
This is disappointing. I guess I'm going to have to settle for second-best. Now I just need to figure out who that is.
