Betsy's Page: "Granted that most of these bills might not make it out of committee or the House, much less into law. But it is an eye-opening look at how different the discussion in politics would be with Democrats in control. Are those conservatives who are so fed up with GOP spending ready to face a House that would be led by Democratic members looking to guarantee all sorts of new entitlements. And note the clear willingness to raise taxes to pay for these new rights. No matter how annoyed you are with the GOP for spending, at least we haven't been discussing new taxes while they've been in control. And we certainly haven't been talking about the federal government guaranteeing voting rights for convicted felons or mandating service from 18 to 42 year olds!"
Friday, October 20, 2006
Listen to Betsy
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4 comments:
This morning I read in the WSJ some of the Democratic law proposals of this past year. One goodie was called the "Social Security Forever Act" which involved raising income taxes on top of FICA to pay for an ever expanding set of benefits. Perhaps they should have included a "Print as Much Money as You Want and Mandated no Inflation Act".
I believe that many Reps have been irresponsible wrt money. My sense is that Bush has been willing to go along with a lot of this stuff as long as he could prosecute the WoT and Iraq, i.e., that he's been trying to maintain enough domestic support to avoid cut & run. Unfortunately, that means pork in the "real" world. I think enough folks will not complain if they get stuff the want. Nonetheless it will be difficult to accept the Reps as the party of smaller, leaner government any time soon.
Do all Republicans consider Republicans the party of smaller, leaner government? I mean they don't think of themselves as BIG government. But still, to me they seem to think of themselves more as competent than as lean and mean.
And, also the values thing.
I think it's just one wing of the many-winged beast that thinks Reps should fight spending wherever they find it.
And I think that's why so many were PO'd at Reynolds---he acts as if he speaks for the entire party but he doesn't.
Me, I'm not big on big government, but I'm not out there brandishing a threatening sword against all spending, nor even against all pork.
Pork, actually, is as American as applie pie. :)
BD,
In theory, very little. If it is mandatory and without exception it can only be attacked as unfair under a theory of impropriety attaching to involuntary servitude. It might be refreshing to see what effect the institution of a civil obligation would have over the period of a generation or so.
In practice it would mean setting up a bureaucracy to manage a force of 8 million. What tasks would you forsee to be accomplished by such a force?
I don't think the question is so much that there is anything wrong with service as it is that th edemcorats are kind of keeping a low profile on some of these things.
If they think mandatory service is a good idea, they should be out there pushing it.
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