13 Ideas for the 2013 GOP
Republicans were already licking their wounds after last November’s bruising defeat, and the last-minute budget deal that raised taxes as 2012 collapsed into 2013 probably didn’t make them any happier.
In January of 2013, Gallup reported that only 14% of Americans approved of how Congress was doing its job. A Gallup poll in 2010 showed that the American public rated the “ethical standards” of Congress about as low as used car salespeople. Republicans could use some new ideas and a fresh start in 2013: I usually advise Democrats, but since I believe that having two healthy parties is good for America, I’ll offer the Republicans some advice here. The GOP could do worse than thinking about these 13 ideas for 2013.
1) Freeze the budget: The House of Representatives has the constitutional authority to set the level of federal spending. If the Republican House just maintains the current levels of spending, then the normal 1-5% annual increase in federal revenues due to better growth and the higher taxes imposed in the budget agreement will slowly and naturally reduce the annual deficit. There is precedent for this: in the 1990s, the Republican-led House controlled spending and the Clinton tax increases paid off in higher revenues, eventually resulting in record surpluses.
2) Reinvent government (again): Twenty years ago, Vice President Al Gore was assigned the task of finding inefficient programs. That was when the federal budget was roughly $1.5 trillion annually. Today, it’s nearly $4 trillion. Surely, some smart young House member can find waste and inefficiency in a government more than twice as large. It might be a good career move, too: back in the 1940s, an obscure Missouri senator chaired the committee overseeing federal spending during World War II, exposing fraud and bungling. Senator Harry Truman eventually became president.
3) Establish a “government reform” task force to look for savings: There’s no reason why this group couldn’t be bipartisan. Invite some Democrats to join in and thereby avoid the suspicion that investigations of the Obama administration’s programs are a partisan witch hunt.
4) Investigate the possibility of reducing American forces in Germany: While NATO served an honorable and crucial role in winning the Cold War, the chances of another war in Central Europe are currently very low. Drawing down American troops to a “trip-wire” force could save up to $20 billion.
5) Consolidate and eliminate departments: There is also precedent for this. In the 1950s and the 1990s, programs that were duplicative were combined to save money (both decades saw balanced budgets). One possible department to consolidate would be the Department of Energy (whose budget was $27 billion last year). Many of this department’s functions can be handled by other cabinet agencies. For example, regulation of oil and gas drilling can be done by the Environmental Protection Agency. Grants in the alternative energy field can be processed by the Commerce Department. Drilling permits can be handled by the Department of the Interior. And so on.
6) Try to reach a bipartisan agreement on adjusting the “cost-of-living” formula for federal benefits: Many economists believe that the current formula to adjust pensions for inflation is overly generous. If so, then adjusting it would not be an absolute cut in benefits, but a reduction in the rate of increase. The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan estimated that this adjustment would save one trillion dollars over the next 30 years. If done on a bipartisan basis, this could be one of the better ways to save money.
7) Try to strengthen the American family: Speaking of Moynihan, he never tired of pointing out that single mothers are five times as likely to be poor as married couples, thus requiring billions of dollars in assistance. Therefore, stronger two-parent families are in the national interest. They are also in the Republican Party’s interest: the network exit polls showed single mothers provided President Obama’s margin of victory in 2012.
8) Make sure your members speak the language of the national interest: The 2012 CNN exit poll showed that Democrats were 38% of the voters, Republicans 32%, and independents 29%. So, any policy that comes across as appealing only to the Republican base isn’t likely to rally the nation as a whole. The good thing about “reform” themes is that they cross party lines, and especially appeal to independents.
9) National Guard/FEMA upgrade: The nation has repeatedly been hit by natural (hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.) and man-made (9/11) disasters over the last generation. More extensive training for the National Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency would seem to be a wise investment.
10) Consider a consumption tax as a last resort to raise revenue: Conservative parties in Europe have raised “value-added taxes” as a less-damaging alternative to higher business or income taxes for years. These sales taxes are largely voluntary, as a person only has to pay if they buy an expensive new product. If it was good enough for Margaret Thatcher …
11) Consider trading a carbon tax for a permanent reduction in business taxes: Increasing the gas tax would not only raise some revenue, it would also reduce energy consumption & pollution and relieve traffic. Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist has indicated that he would not oppose increased energy taxes if other levies were reduced by an equal amount, thus making the tax “revenue-neutral.”
12) Support bipartisan immigration reform: Assigning Senator Marco Rubio to negotiate a compromise immigration bill was a wise move. Hispanics helped provide President Obama’s margin of victory last year; their future clout will only grow due to higher birth rates, and a new approach is strongly advised for the GOP.
13) Create a Victoria Soto memorial: Renaming teacher scholarship programs after Ms. Soto, who gave her life protecting her students in Newtown, would not only be a kind gesture but would also help soften the GOP’s sometimes harsh image, as Ms. Soto was a “two-fer”: female and Latin.
None of these ideas would necessarily guarantee future GOP victories. Any opposition party has, by definition, to almost always hope for the incumbents to make mistakes. If either Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden is running in 2016 on a platform of peace and prosperity, then “New Ideas” will hardly matter. But I firmly believe that these concepts are a good start. Let the Republican debates begin.
Also read: Can the GOP Find a Path Forward?
I thought about responding point by point, but I’ll just say this: yes, we can tell you usually advise democrats.
The GOP is not directionless, it is spineless. We conservatives have made our unhappiness known (you know, the Tea Party) but the party has balked at the prospect of standing up for our principles. Nobody in the Republican party wants to make themselves targets of the Obama administration and his media thugs – therefore, the party bends over and gives way. Spineless.
That’s not a winning electoral strategy.
Right now, Obama’s approval rating is over *thirty points* higher than that of Congress.
For the congressional GOP to just fight Obama on every front may make YOU happy, and it may make the rest of the GOP base happy. But that’s all. The entire rest of the electorate won’t approve of that.
We already tried to win by just knocking down Obama, and it didn’t work. The GOP has to improve its brand and its image, which right now are about as popular as the Edsel when it comes to national politics. (Local GOP politicians do better in rural Red districts, but those are relatively sparsely populated.)
The GOP used to be the party of positive reform, not just “Stop the Dems at all costs!” It pioneered education reform with school vouchers. It pioneered welfare reform. It modernized national defense.
If the GOP has nothing positive to offer, then it should just shut up.
“If the GOP has nothing positive to offer, then it should just shut up.”
I guess I’m just old-fashioned, but I don’t vote on the basis of what the politician has to offer me. The best service the government can do is just leave my family and I alone.
Obama’s approval level isn’t exactly sky-high; the fact that Congress has an even lower approval level doesn’t mean that Obama is a well-loved man. The average American, conservative and liberal, despises politicians. Big surprise. Considering that Obama’s icon status is derived from a popular culture that supports him, his youthful image, and his race, I’d argue the only people the GOP could ever attract are the more rational voters.
Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the GOP has never been hip, cool, or youthful, and certainly never had the support of the popular media. The only time the GOP accomplished anything was by standing up for its beliefs. Compromising conservative principals just to stay alive is far too collaborationist for me. Perhaps you would like to write in Marshal Pétain in the next election…
If the GOP has nothing positive to offer, then it should just shut up. — sinz
Federalism be damned.
If the GOP doesnt offer Federal Government programs and solutions to every facet of human existence, then they should just shut up and let the Communists drive policy.
There you have it folks.
Good rejoinder. I am weary of watching the Republicans in Washington simply strive to be Democrats lite. But they want to be liked. It’s soooo silly.
Good point. Restoring federalism should be one of the main GOP planks. Defending gun rights should also be high on the list. And neither of these was mentioned in this article, and both wouold be very popular with libertarian leaning independents, and also with the many young people that voted for Ron Paul.
Federalism could also allow the GOP to solve the division between socons and libertarians. Basically let socon issues be decided at the state level. The deep red states that are socon dominated can still have their way at the state level, but it may allow the GOP a chance in many red states that may be receptive to fiscal responsibility and libertarian messages, but are turned off by the southern repub socons. Basically why should voters in TX care how voters in CA treat gay people, and vice versa why should voters in CA care how TX treats them.
Exactly.
Much of the above suggestions are pandering (such as the Soto memorial) and others are so mealy-mouthed as to be useless.
For instance: How can the government “try to strengthen the American family”?
Okay, let’s come right out and say it: the only way to do that is to put an end to all the “social safety net” programs that incentivize single motherhood, and also change the divorce laws that favor women who want to abandon their husbands and take their children away, other than for the most dire of reasons. And while we’re at it, put an end to all further talk of gay marriage and gay adoption.
I’m in favor of the above policies, but how many GOP politicians would have the courage to support it? These days, anybody who doesn’t support the gay agenda is demonized. Well, I do not support it, and I never will.
The GOP has been a false-flag operation for many decades. Its purpose is to keep genuine conservatives out of office so that our supposed “betters” can continue with business as usual.
Amen to that! Is this just another Democrat in Republican wool? Naaaahhhhhhh.
Simple is better.
#1099-GOV: The Taxpayer Revolt
When I see welfare, section 8 housing, medicaid, food stamps and other government ‘income, redistributed’ getting the same kind of reporting as a sweat-stained W2 or 1099-MISC I’ll know we’ve moved in the right direction. Until then it is all just political theatre.
Tax Revolt is another good tactic. And something to pursue before secession.
We’re not gonna take it. Oh, no, we ain’t gonna take it. We’re not gonna take it anymore!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xmckWVPRaI
The Republican party is staring down the barrel of oblivion due to it’s unwillingness to practise what it preaches.
Good riddance, it won’t be missed…
Hear hear!
A Republican proposed VAT tax? Why not a national tax on pizzas, instead? That would be just as beneficial to the GOP as your proposal.
If I were superstitious I’d think you had an ulterior motive in your choice to make THIRTEEN points.
More taxes? That is not the answer. VAT (like all consumption taxes) also affect the poor far more than anyone else (since everything will now cost 20% more and yet their wages won’t go up), and carbon trading is just a money transfer from the poor and middle class to the wealthy (since again, everything will simply cost more).
An end-consumer consumption tax that would replace or greatly lower and level out the income tax wouldn’t be a bad idea.
It’s a horrible idea. Drastically more expensive and complicated to implement, functionally quite regressive.
The income tax in contrast is easy to implement, hard to avoid, and can be made perfectly fair–in contrast to the Fair Tax, which tremendously difficult to make other than regressive. It isn’t he government’s job to move money between economic classes of people.
Keep the income tax, but phase in counting all individual income as income, eliminate corporate income taxes, and phase out all deductions and exemptions. Make the return fit on a postcard. Only downside is the unemployment spike as tax preparers and lawyers hit the skids–but that parasite drag on the economy is gone.
If the only way to sell it is to have be somewhat progressive, have a single per capita deduction. Still fits on a postcard.
“eliminate corporate income taxes, and phase out all deductions and exemptions.
Can you explain what the national benefit of eliminating corporate/business tax would be in these times?
Free enterprise capitalism has never been more corrupted than it is in these times. Inclusive of the corruption, the major economic bases of free enterprise has never been more consolidated and monopolized than in these times. The nations wealth disparity has never been higher than it is now, since the 1920s. Corporate /business taxation is the very least of all the variables responsible for the nations global market non competitiveness of goods and services. Reaganomics was tried and failed miserably! The Reagan era started the nations greatest growth rates of government, government spending increases and rise of national debt. The collapse of 2007 was in large part, due to the the Reagan economic philosophies coming home to roost — Reagan, GWH Bush and GW Bush. The GW Bush debt alone, adjusted for inflation, interest and ammortization, is $12 Trillion dollars — at the moment. The old haydays of a flourishing economic are not likely to return and Reaganomics and the Laffer curve theory, is dead on arrival!
Eliminating all tax deductions of personal income sounds like a great ideal on its surface. However, it would have disaterous consequences on the middle, working poor and poverty classes of americans. The upper income classes would continue in droves to offshore companies and in fact relocate their ‘owned’ companies in larger numbers to off shore locations. They have the wealth and means to evades such tax policies while, the middle, working poor and poverty classes do not.
It’s clear you’ve been mis-educated. Ronald Reagan’s policies were responsible for the greatest peace-time growth in our economy in history.
The Crash of 2007 was brought about by government interference in the housing market. The Community Redevelopment Act signed by Carter and revised by Clinton forced the banks to make loans to people who wouldn’t have normally qualified for one. Barack Obama was also a principal actor through his lawsuits against the banks.
Our economy is in shambles because of unecessary government regulations. The growth of the Washington leviathan began under 110th Congress led by Democrats.
“Can you explain what the national benefit of eliminating corporate/business tax would be in these times?”
Large corporations can already effectively set their rates to zero through effective lobbying and sweatheart deals. Changing de facto to de jure like this would level the playing field for small and medium businesses. May also entice people considering starting a small business. It would also take away one of the major things public ‘servants’ have to offer large corporations and potentially eliminate some corruption. The icing on the cake is this policy would make us a tax haven for foreign companies looking to set up more international offices or invest overseas.
I would support a national sales tax or VAT only if it completely replaces the income tax and corporate tax, preferably coupled with repeal of the 16th amendment, so the income tax could not come back. If you are concerned about it being too regressive, you could also repeal the payroll tax, so one regressive tax would be replaced by another. For those concerned about the environment you could trade some of the sales/VAT for a carbon tax. I will also answer some incorrect objections raised to it, and some advantage gained by it.
1. Too complicated. Wrong, most states already have sales tax, it just increases those rates. It would in fact be simpler since it would only be collected by busineses at point of sale, and with payroll taxes and income taxes repealed, ordinary individuals would not have to fill out tax paperwork at all.
2. Too regressive. This might be true if it only replaced the income and corporate tax, but if it also replaces the regressive payroll tax this would not be a problem. In that case the only people hurt by it would be those that are not working or investing, and maybe those people should be hurt some.
3. Increasing prices. Yes it would increase prices by the amount of the tax, but that would be offset by inceasing take home pay and returns on savings and investments for individuals. And employers would save on payroll taxes, and corporate/income taxes, and they would pass on some of those savings with lower prices.
4. How about SS trust fund. If you repeal the payroll tax, you would need to allocate some % of the new revenues to the SS and medicare trust funds. You would also still have to collect wage data from employers to calculate future SS benefits, but the worker or employer would pay no payroll taxes. It would be assumed that the worker pays them when they buy something, and the employer pays them when they sell their goods.
5. Everybody pays. Since everybody buys something eventually, everybody would pay it, so it would end the present very undesireable situation where people vote themselves benefits, thinking only other people would pay for them. With the national sales, VAT, or carbon tax, everybody would pay, and therefore everybody would have a stake in keeping taxes, and therefore spending, low. Even those who earn their money under an underground or criminal economy still have to pay if they spend their gains. Even visitors touring the US, and foreigners selling products here would pay.
6. No special interest deductions. When you buy something you pay the tax, no exceptions, no more ability for congress to give special interest favors by jiggering some special deduction to the tax code.
7. Encourage savings and investment. Return on investments and savings are no longer taxed, encouraging them. But once you spend your investment returns, you pay. So the rich pay, but only if they live rich. If the rich person lives a middle class lifestyle, but invests or donates most of their income, they pay no more than anybody else. This encourages those that reinvest their income, creating more investment and productivity growth, and encourages charity since it is not a taxable purchase, but penalizes those living above their means, or lazy rich kids living off of inheritances. It also encourages companies to increase profits by controlling expenses and producing more efficiently, rather than rising prices, since they keep all the profit from increased efficiency, but would pay taxes on the profits from higher prices.
8. Even China pays the tax. Right now employers and workers pay taxes, but plants in China dont, giving advantages to outsourcers. But with this tax everybody pays when their products are sold here, including China.
I would support a national sales tax (but not a cowardly, hidden-from-the-consumer VAT) only if the income tax were repealed.
It should be a replacement tax that encourages upward mobility rather than punishing it, not an additional tax that punishes American families for spending as well as earning..
Repealing the income tax would require another Constitutional amendment, which requires approval of 3/4 of the state legislatures.
Any proposal that requires passage of a Constitutional amendment isn’t serious.
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”
You don’t need a constitutional amendment to not collect income taxes. Just pass a law setting all FIT rates to zero. Just the opposite of what happened with the so-called fiscal cliff tax deal.
The Constitution was amended to allow an income tax. It doesn’t mandate we have one – so no amendment in necessary.
An amendment might be necessary to guarantee it never comes back, though.
Whether it’s your ignorance or stupidity, it’s impressive.
The income tax is a law, it can be repealed without an amendment. The amendment merely made the law which creates the income tax a constitutional one when passed, the amendment doesn’t mandate that we use the power it creates.
It clears up a lot that you have no idea what makes the government legitimate, how it is intended to operate.
Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution:
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”
‘from whatever source derived’
So, what would be gained by appealing the income tax law assuming, you could somehow cite it unconstitutional and since the tax funds collected are essential for the shaping and preservation of a free market economy? Taxation under the Constitutions Article I Section 8, are going to be levied and collected regardless, of what it may be called or where it literally comes from. Taxation in any form(s) is not going to be repealed – plain annd simple!
We will either go back to a commerce style of taxation such as that from 1791 until 1862 or stay with the income tax form from 1862 forward. Pretty much a moot subject other than the two choices!
Wrong. The amendment gave congress the right to pass the income tax, not a requirement they do it. So congress could repeal the income tax without repealing the amendment. The only good reason to repeal the amendment as well is to ensure that congress does not bring back the income tax again someday, in addition to the consumption taxes.
Properly done VAT in replacement of income tax would affect only that which is over and above necessity, e.g. $4k Prada handbags, swimming pools, and so on. Nobody *needs* those things. The question is whether these things make up enough sales that this would work.
But. We already do this. Look at the 47% business; the fed has determined that any number of people don’t have enough income to tax, and in theory if not actual practice, tax is already directed at disposable income across the board.
Then why do I see people who drive sports cars and have all the latest tech gadgets using EBT cards to buy groceries?
Just sayin’ – a lot of those 47%ers have more disposable income than I do. They sit around on their asses collecting benefits. I work for a living, and a pretty good one at that…higher than the average, anyway.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Maybe what’s wrong is that I’m more responsible with the money I do have. But even so, I’m not exactly sympathetic to Obama’s class warfare appeals or his philosophy of “spreadin’ the wealth around” when I see “poor” people with brand new IPads, Samsung Galaxy S3′s, and Chevy Camaros. Eff them.
Then why do I see people who drive sports cars [snip]
In what fresh hell is Camaro a sports car?
OK, you see people who are recently unemployed using EBT. So?
randomengineer don’ need no Internet.
lotsa other toys randomengineer don’ need either. I decide.
heh heh
Disagree completely. There should be zero exceptions to the consumption tax. That just perpetuates the present worst features of the income tax, which is:
1. Too many people dont pay the income tax, so they have no stake in keeping taxes low.
2. The income tax has too many special interest exceptions, leading to influence peddling, corruption, and the perception, sometimes accurate, that some rich dont pay what they should.
The VAT in Europe hits everything you buy, not just expensive items. It is also unseen.
Bases in Germany have been closing. However there are facilities you may want to keep, like the hospital facilities that serve soldiers wounded in the middle east.
Bi-partisan immigration reform means nothing if the reform is bad.
No one will remember who DeSoto is, if they do now.
I have some advice as well:
1. Don’t destroy Marco before he has a chance to run for President.
2. Stop glorifying the fat basturd from NJ who is looking out for #1 a the cost of our entire party.
3. Stop glorifying anyone who votes for obamba simply because he is black,then claims he is a Republican and does radio spots the weekend before the election for obabma. People like that,Colin Powell if you didn’t get it, are not Republicans. They are not even Rinos.
4.Stop trying to be all things to all people just espouse conservative values. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
Marco seems to be trying to do the “destroy Marco” thing all on his own.
Marco (Rubio) seems to be doing the “destroy Marco” thing all on his own.
It was worth saying twice.
Gotta agree.
I mean really you think that voting for immigration “reform” will make you look good to the same people bombarded by the liberal thought machine 24/7?
What possible political advantage is there for Republicans in letting several million people who are part of a group that historically votes (D) by 2-1 over (R) become citizens?
Setting everything else aside, the math makes it very clear that buying into another amnesty is political suicide for Republicans. If they want to reform immigration, fine, there’s a lot that needs reforming, but the ‘reform’ cannot be an amnesty.
There’s also the current Republicans who won’t vote for a GOP that supports amnesty. For example: me. The GOP doesn’t just lose by letting in millions of Latinos who are future Democrats. It loses with its base.
Agree on Christie, I used to like him a lot, but he has become a complete rhino since the hurricain.
Agree on Powell. Still respect him for his service, but with his recent attacks on repubs, and his Obama worship, he may as well be a dem.
I still have some hope for Rubeo, and dont think he is completely wrong on immigration. Although if we want a great Hispanic hope I think Cruz is much better. Cruz has really impressed me lately.
3 IDEAS FOR THE GOP of TODAY
1. Join the socialist Democrats; you’re confusing your message, RINOs.
2. Surrender the GOP to Conservative/Tea Partiers.
3. Die. Preferably NOW.
Best idea of the day.
What’s the point in all this effort to improve (change?) the Republican party? Until we can secure honest elections without fraud what difference will it make? Two-thirds of all government programs are useless overlaps. Newt Gingrich, Allen West and a host of others know this. I know it. Those who comment here should know it. The only thing to change is that we do something instead of whining about it. Little is wrong but an advanced case of political lethargy.
This list contains too much stuff that only political operatives care about. There is nothing concrete here that would convince a working blue collar / middle class voter that the GOP is on his side. Which is decisive.
Sounds like a list some “focus group” would come up with…it’s much simpler:
1) Nominate candidates (for all levels of government) with sincere beliefs (you know, ones that they’ve held for more than 15 minutes) and who can articulate those beliefs clearly. Lots and lots of people who disagreed with Ronald Reagan on a variety of issues still voted for him twice for president. They liked him personally and respected that he sincerely held his beliefs even if they didn’t agree with all of them.
2) Pick leaders for the GOP in the Senate and House who have spines and who are actually Republicans instead of members of the Incumbent (I) Party. You’re never going to have effective GOP legislation (even if there was a Republican in the White House) with this bunch of bumbling blobs of jello in charge.
3) Ignore anything that looks like focus group “concensus” nonsense…like most of this article.
By all means bring on the VAT and feed the ravenous leviathan.
“Karl Rove and rich GOP donors wage war on Tea Party”
http://www.therightscoop.com/karl-rove-and-rich-gop-donors-wage-war-on-tea-party/
DEATH TO THE GOP
How about #14: Actually STAND for something?
How about establishing conservative principles, such as lower taxes, smaller government, and much less spending, and sticking to them? I know that’s a radical idea, one that RINOs like Carl Rove seem to laugh at. But, hey, it’s just a thought. Not that any of the elites in the Republican party would actually listen to that. You know who the elites are. They are the same people who gave us real “winners” like Dole, McCain, and Romney. You really want to keep nominating people like that?
The majority of the money from your fed tax dollar goes to entitlements for seniors and the military industrial complex.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258
According to that chart 48% of the budget goes to the elderly: 20% SS, 21% medical, 7% fed retirees. Another 20% is wrapped into defense stuff. So that’s 68% of the fed budget.
Then view medical expense data showing that the overwhelming majority of dollars goes to keeping seniors alive 2 more years. SS when invented assumed that most people would be supported for 2-3 years (compare retirement age vs life expectency) whereas now the boomers retire at 62 to 65 and the average age they live to is getting to be over 80. That’s 15-18 years of collecting cash vs 2-3. That’s where the majority of the fed tax dollar goes. And now the boomers are retiring in record numbers. Arguing smaller government isn’t useful.
Re unemployment:
You need a roof. Yours is old. Modern tech now allows for you to tell the big box store your address. Rather than send someone out to measure they give you an estimate over the phone of by email. Why? Because gubmint surveillance sats took photos of your place from space, companies buy non-sensitive footage, and the dimensions of your roof are easily determined. And the calc can be done on a modern smart phone.
This illustrates that there’s now another few thousand people not needed because their jobs were obsoleted by technology, and there’s few lateral moves where they can get similar jobs elsewhere (technology ate those as well.) Multiply this tiny little micro-example and it becomes easier to see where jobs go.
Now, the important thing here is that this happens as a result of what can be done via automation and has nothing to do with policy of evil democrats or RINO republicans. Just by default here you have fewer jobs and retirees living long past the design of the safety net they depend on.
What *I* advocate is government action where the government takes on a temporary positive direct jobs creation role as opposed to a passive one where job creation is always private and government merely makes policy. For once I’d like to see something like the fed interstate highway program addressed at nuclear power, say funding and direction to construct 20,000 MW per state within the next 10 years. The indirect result of cheap energy would be the job creation engine of the future.
“What *I* advocate is government action where the government takes on a temporary positive direct jobs creation role as opposed to a passive one where job creation is always private and government merely makes policy. For once I’d like to see something like the fed interstate highway program addressed at nuclear power, say funding and direction to construct 20,000 MW per state within the next 10 years. The indirect result of cheap energy would be the job creation engine of the future.”
Great idea! Just like the 5-year industrial policy programs of the old Soviet Union. Or the Japanese industrial policy model that Robert Reich speaks so glowingly of. They worked out so beautifully, didn’t they? Crony capitalism! What a brilliant concept! Put Jeffery Immelt in charge! Kill fracking and the Keystone pipeline and other dimwitted ideas such as those from the greedy private sector! Forward!
Please. When is the notion that our markets and lives generally can be successfully ordered by a bunch of masterminds in DC and elsewhere ever going to die?
Great idea! Just like the 5-year industrial policy programs of the old Soviet Union.
Interstate highway system.
Manhattan project.
Apollo space program.
US air mail.
ENIAC.
(just to name a few.)
All massive failures, right? Please.
Your tea party fantasy of “smaller government” as you advocate has never been reality in your lifetime, nor that of your father.
Try dealing with reality.
Interstate highway system. That was in response to an enumerated government responsibility as per the U.S. constitution.
Manhattan project. Another response to an enumerated government responsibility (defense) as per the U.S. constitution.
Apollo space program. Yes, Along with a couple of minor private enterprises with names like Lockheed-Martin, Teledyne, General Electric, Westinghouse, IBM, and maybe even HALLIBURTON!
US air mail. Made possible by a couple of privately funded bicycle shop owning brothers named Wright. (By the way, the federal government spent a fortune funding research into the feasibility of flight before declaring it an impracticality). And, also, a third that was in response to an enumerated government responsibility as per the U.S. constitution. At least until FedEx, UPS and others discovered it was a creaky out-of-date failing enterprise and rode to the rescue.
ENIAC. Number four on the list of constitutionally mandated responsibilities (defense again).
Now. Let’s try ETHANOL. Or the children’s national vaccine program where the end result was the stuff rotting in warehouses. Or possibly the solar panel enterprise of late, or the Boston “Big Dig”, or wind power, and on and on and on.
Oh well. Back to the drawing boards, Mr. Engineer.
Interstate highway system. That was in response to an enumerated government responsibility as per the U.S. constitution.
Review:
In response to my suggestion, you claimed something to the effect of soviet style 5 year plans to show that top down implemtation never works.
I showed examples that worked.
You are now making claims as to what you perceive as to the constitutional rationale for these things.
You have changed the subject. Plus, you did not refute my examples; if anything, you seem to be going to pains to explain why they worked.
Here’s the reality:
Thanks to the EPA, OSHA, the Endangered Species Act, NIMBY, and various sundry “community organizers,” those same projects would take four times as long to build today–if they could get built at all.
Here’s an example. Near where I live, one of the Interstate bridges was crumbling. So the state decided to pay a contractor to rebuild it. But the bridge had been built at that location before the Endangered Species Act was passed. Now that the Act existed, the contractor had to find out if there were any endangered species there. And guess what, there were! Instead of rebuilding the bridge at the original location, the entire road might have needed to be relocated away from the endangered species’ habitat.
Those days are over in America.
The environmentalists and the liberals and the rest of the peanut gallery have slowed down large construction projects almost to a halt: The Boston Big Dig took 18 years. Building the Freedom Tower in New York City will take 15 years. (It took only 18 months to build the Empire State Building.)
Nuclear power? You haven’t got a prayer of building even ONE nuclear power plant after the National Resources Defense Council gets through with it.
I spent many years working for the most socialistic state in America and for most of those years was far enough up the ladder to have a firm grip on the switches and levers of money and power. What naifs like you simply don’t get is how corrupt and corrupting government is.
If Acme Enterprises, a truly private company, wanted to build a nuclear power plant, it would buy the best technology it could afford from whomever would give it the best price and it would pay its labor whatever it took to get an adequate supply of adequately skilled labor. When the plant was finished it would sell that power for what it could get in a competitive market. Because of government involvent, that environment simply doesn’t exist at any level of the endeavor.
Whether the money from the project comes from banks, subscription, government, or all of the above, faceless nameless bureaucrats determine whether or not the financing will be available and even if the bureaucrat himself isn’t corrupt or corruptable, somebody up the chain from him is and there will be a price for the money. It may be as little as giving somebody a job or as much as giving the construction contract to a particular company, or giving the local building trades council a project labor agreement. When it comes time to permit the project, the poverty pimps, the unions, the greenies, and every other form of pestilence line up to extract their price. It will be built with union labor, there will be mandated minority hire, there will be greenies employed in high-paid nothing jobs for “oversight” and bleeding edge technology by companies with greenie ties will be employed, there will be Davis-Bacon standard wages whether or not public funds are involved. During the construction any beef with labor will result in their friends from wage and hour, labor standards and safety, occupational health or any of a number of the alphabet soup of agencies that can stop a job or making it more expensive dropping by for a visit and the union WILL get what it wants because the company can’t afford the delay. Anybody who didn’t get their hand in the till will line up before the regulatory agency that sets the rate the company can charge for the power and only when they are sated will a rate be set. At the end of the process, the nuclear plant will have taken four or five times as long to build as it should have, cost two or three times as much as it should have, and the electricity coming from it will be many multiples of what it could have been. Oh, and everything government buys, finances, permits, or regulates works the same way. There is a reason all our infrastructure is falling apart: in the current political environment nobody can affort to fix or replace it.
Home run, Art!
I would imagine that similar dynamics with the money flow came (& continue to come) into play with the post Sandy rebuilding, Katrina as well…..
The author states “If either Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden is running in 2016 on a platform of peace and prosperity,…..”. It will be a miracle if by 2016 Iran is not a nuclear power and America’s economy has not tanked. If at that time the collective majority intellect is so dim that either of these two could be considered a path to peace and prosperity then I suggest that any rational human being that still remains should be considering a move to New Zealand.
These 13 points are so full of illogic and non-reality as to be an embarrassment to PJM. Go back to advising Democrats, Mr. Reddy.
I’m surprised he didn’t suggest Jeb Bush 2016. That will be the final nail in the GOP coffin.
The MSM is the largest problem. The only way to solve it is to boycott all products advertised on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN nightly news programs, morning shows and don’t forget 60 minutes. Hit them where it hurts.
Promise: “I will cut the deficit in half.”
Result: Deficit increases 250%
Media Response: “It doesn’t matter.”
Nothing will change until the omnipresent propaganda stops.
“Nothing will change until the omnipresent propaganda stops.”
Allan, your point is better than the author’s post itself and all of the comments that follow. I have long believed that we have more to fear from the presence of Brian Williams (et al.) than Obama himself. Author Reddy suggests Hillary or Biden as viable 2016 candidates. A serial liar (HRC) or a moron (Biden) should and would be destroyed, if they were Republicans, at the starting-gate by an honest media, as would a Republican version of Obama. PJM contributors fret about what the Republican message should be without ever seeming to consider that it is going to be what the state-controlled propaganda machine says it is. Sadly, nobody seems to want to seriously go for a solution but instead simply gripe about the situation.
No, we just stay *on topic*.
Tired refrain, but time for a third party. It won’t win for a long time, but it’s a start.
How long did it take for the Republicans to win in the 1860′s?!
The Republicans were never a third party. They didn’t even field national candidates until after the Whig party had dissolved, and their first run (Fremont in 1856) failed. Our electoral system means there will never be a significant third party. If you want more than two parties (and there are some significant downsides) you need to change how we run elections.
Establishment Money seems to be the only thing preventing the GOP from withering away like the Whigs.
Not enough, except for the short term.
Tea/Conservative Party. Through GOP abdication or not.
This is insane:
….pasted here from the article itself:
“In January of 2013, Gallup reported that only 14% of Americans approved of how Congress was doing its job. A Gallup poll in 2010 showed that the American public rated the “ethical standards” of Congress about as low as used car salespeople.”
Yet they remain seated right there in OUR Congress of elected representatives.
So, we’ve got no one to blame but ourselves.
This is the biggest pile of nonsense I have read yet since the election on how the GOP should handle their losses.
“If either Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden is running in 2016 on a platform of peace and prosperity…”
Out of respect for the PJ Media commenting policy, I won’t say what I really feel about that sentence. Suffice to say, that will not happen because thanks to Obameecare and the coming amnesty for illegals, in 2016 America will be deep in the 8th year of the Obamee Depression, facing a $22 trillion national debt, with a listed unemployment rate of 12% (and a real unemployment rate of 25% plus) and voters vowing to end the Democrat party and the RINOs for good.
We. Don’t. Have. To. Moderate. A. Single. Thing. The party that will get swept into power in 2016 will be the Tea Party, and everything will be on the chopping block.
It’s not the GOP that faces obliteration here. America will have to face tough love for the next four years, and they’ll join us very, very soon.
We have always been right.
Lightwave writes “The party that will get swept into power in 2016 will be the Tea Party, and everything will be on the chopping block.”
And I respond with “wanna bet?”. As referenced before, no such thing will take place while the MSM controls the message which will be “the Republicans, Wall Street, the rich fat-cats, and the extreme far-right Tea Partiers did it”. The NEA will soak our kids with that notion, the SEIU will bus illegals to the polls, and the single moms (not widows and other unfortunates but the ones who got knocked-up by a moron at after smokin’ a little weed) will see their lifestyle threatened and we will most likely get one of Ruddy’s two esteemed picks to finish the job on America.
Any discussion of how to rescue this great nation screams for a recognition of reality. That, so far, seems to be sadly lacking.
“…they’ll join us very, very soon.”
As long as the mall parking lots stay full, don’t bet on that. As long as people are not feeling any real pain, the Democrats are going to stay right where they are right now, in the proverbial Catbird’s Seat. Meantime the Pubs would be well served to purge their ranks of anyone who is too fast & loose with statements of any type that betray ignorance & stupidity. Because the MSM is perpetually on the leftists’ side, it’s up to our pols to be above reproach at all times.
You haven’t got a prayer of doing that.
The Tea Party is about 95% white, at a time when the electorate is only 70% white.
White people no longer decide elections without minorities. Obama’s coalition of blacks, Hispanics, Asians, gays and lesbians, and single women is bigger than the entire Tea Party–and the gap is widening.
Sinz is right. White people need to organize into overt Identity Political groups outside of any political party promising color blind policies of equality that is a losing issue for that political party going forward. That way they may have some political influence going forward, and give politicians an identifiable group to pander to and to patronize with government wealth transfers, special protections, special rights, special preferences and so on and so forth.
Otherwise white Europeans (especially Anlgoized) will continue to be demonized, disrespected, discriminated against legally, disempowered purposely, etc.
Males likewise need to organize to protect their rights and promote their interests.
This is the Zeitgeist, it doesnt matter if you abhor it, you must navigate it, to survive and thrive.
What you’re suggesting is no recipe for success as long as white people continue to carry about with them such a strong sense of guilt over their status of being descended from slave owners; many do this subconciously, IMO.
I agree.
They need to build their own institutions in order to promote their own sense of self worth and self love.
It will take time to build a strong Political Identity bloc of voters. The sooner we start the better.
Many will be skeptical at first, but once they see practical on the ground results of lawfare and legal and political advocacy, then their will be more and more sympathy and support for these organizations. We need our own Studies Departments to, where White Europeans unapologetically promote their historical narratives and celebrate their history and traditions…without deference to others.
I have an alternative suggestion that doesn’t involve becoming a slightly less left wing version of the socialist Democrats.
Stand for personal freedom and liberty of the individual in order to allow the citizen to make the absolute most of their personal lives. To that end, seek to remove as many federal and state impediments to that end as possible.
Yes, this does mean everyone has to exercise a little personal responsibility – but hey, it builds character.
Simple, to the point, no long list to remember….what’s not to like?
Why do we keep dancing around the pink elephant in the room: Secession.
We can continue to talk about what the GOP needs to do, what conservatives need to do but in the end, it will amount to nothing. The GOP has never done (with the one exception of Reagan) what it needs to do for America. The McLames, Grahmestys, and Hatchs (“my friends on the other side”) will always look out for what is best for them and their prog colleagues. With all due respect to Lightwave, it will never happen. As things get worse economically, the left will gain more power.
The progs control all the levers of power in America. They will never relenquish that power via the electoral process. So forget any grand (politcal)ideas of how to bring America back from where it is heading. That should have been done 50 years ago.
Why is PJM and other “conservative” leaning sites afraid to talk about secession? Does anyone here think we can really co-exist with the left going forward? What proof do you need to see that this is not going to end well for America-the America we love? What is going to happen when 50% of America is not white? Does the former Yugoslavia mean anything to you? We will be a racially and ethnically balkanized nation then.
What do you think the progs will do in order to control this nation that has no single national character? The WON and his sycophants have given you clues already (like the editor of the Des Moines Journal and college profs) but everyone continues to rationalize them and their behaviors. BS.
DO not count on the GOP or any pol to help save America. Forget any political solution to what we need to do to save America. It won’t happen.
“Why is PJM and other “conservative” leaning sites afraid to talk about secession?”
There has been some talk of it here & there but it doesn’t make much sense to go forward with it until the situation becomes far more untenable than it is right now. It’s going to take the matter of people’s everyday lives being utterly disrupted to the point that they think there is no return before something like this can happen. Right now people can still go about their daily routines unhindered; that will have to go away before anything resembling a real change can or will take place.
Like Benghazi?
In what way has the whitewashing of the Bengazi scandal been disruptive to people’s daily lives, blotto?
You do know that “pink elephant” is another word for “hallucination”? That you’re asking why everyone’s ignoring the solution to the racial-ethnic bogeyman that exists in your head?
My answer, I guess, is that not everyone is both white and halfway-to-batshit, and I can’t clearly see how the matter of secession belongs in the realm of political parties to begin with.
Tee: The article lists several issues or steps the GOP could take to get back to political promenance, which I took to task because as long as the left controls the language (like you attempted to vis a vis my comment), power levers, information pathways and political processes of the nation none of the above will ever see fruition.
Okay Tee so besides having nothing of value to say to my comment or the article how about answering this question:
Given the inexorable march toward economic collapse, be it hyper-inflation, stagflation or depression, the loss of national character due to the influx of citizens not assimilating and becoming Americans, govenment spending at 25% of GDP, and the consolidation of power by the progs, and given those parameters, what do you think should be done by the GOP in order to save it from the trash heap? PS You cannot change the parameters to suit your bias.
You want to rearrange the borders of the country in order to suit yours, but I get ground rules.
OK, the 13-item list above is too much like the opposition’s idea of good behavior, and I don’t even think the GOP is so far gone as to need that kind of advice. But since you asked, the first thing I would do is herd the secessionists, supremacists, and civil war agitators out the back door and lock it. Then, stand firm against gun control and the rising national debt as you are and leave the Pro-life agenda to individual state battles. Look after the war vets – it’s been 10 years now. Many are poor or broken or can’t find housing; they need social services too. Look after the elderly – someone had a point up thread, they are consuming the bulk of the social spending, often due to burning through their assets at $9,000 a month or so to some facility to spend their last days and then, of course, landing on Medicaid. No one ever questions that and it’s a national disgrace. (In light of this, dispense with the “makers vs. takers” bullshit. It’s repulsive.) Revisit the issues of free market vs. job protection and “the burden of regulation” amongst yourselves and take a good look at exactly who is arguing for exactly what, and then decide whether or not to take up the cause. Do not confuse the creation of wealth with wisdom of the wealthy. Keep government and its agencies honest; expose waste, excessive bureaucracy & corruption, and oppose codes of political correctness. But also note that our nation includes names like San Francisco and Santa Fe and Boca Raton for a reason; it’s a little late to be worried about that kind of ethnic influence. Control immigration, but remember that historically, we’ve assimilated people like it’s our job.
That’s all I’ve got for now.
This list is garbage for many reasons. Not least of which is the false premise that Congressional approval ratings mean anything. Congress isn’t a monolithic entity, it is composed of two houses, each under the control of a different party. Thus, a conservative would disapprove of Congress due to the actions (or lack thereof) of the Senate, while a liberal would disapprove of Congress due to the actions of the House. Then there are the extremists on both sides who disapprove of Boehner or Ried because they haven’t gone far enough. The 14% who approve of Congress probably derives in large part from the natural libertarians who view governmental gridlock as a good thing.
I have been telling people for years that the congress which legislates the least often legislates the best. When you can get bi-partisan consensus which satifies the majority of voters as well as both parties on an issue, then they rarely have a problem passing something. When you get gridlock in congress I view this as a desireable feature instead of a problem.
However, when you get a congress running the railroad express of a single party, then you end up with craptacular legislation like the Affordable Care Act. Otherwise known as a “vanity” piece of legislation to secure a legacy for a president.
Unless more than a simple majority can agree that something is in the benefit of their personal interests, it most likely isn’t something which the federal government should be legislating.
A lot of my conservative friends over the post President Bush years have been starting to appreciate the value of legislative gridlock. The trick is to let our legislators know this is part of their job when necessary, instead of them always compromising toward the Main Steam Media agenda.
Make Ted Cruz the Senate Leader (and then actually allow him to lead).
It would be a resounding statement that the old make-no-waves-and-kick-the-can-down-the-road-and-then-hand-the-keys-to-the-next-passionless-nerd strategy is dead and gone. There is no fresher blood in the Senate.
Hey, has anybody noticed that Mr. Cruz is Hispanic, courageous, young, and dynamic.
The same ‘conservatives’ destroyed Perry will destroy Rubio for the same reason.
I had the shock of my life recently. A web site that I ignorantly used to go to. Suddenly spouting the new conservative line that something called an ‘Aztec’ was genetically predestined to erect pyramids and conduct human sacrifice.
This caricature is what the left thinks is the GOP already. Pretty much a Rino already I said wait a minute, he means *my kids*. On both sides of the family we have been here for 400 years one one side and what is it 5000 on the other.
I’m ready for a new party also. this time without the Alabama version of conservatism. Make mine the Lincoln version please. the square green eye shade conservatives that only hate red ink and dont give a rats ass what someone looks like if he can do the job.
What do you think the republicans will do in order to control this nation that has no single national character? why don’t we quit telling Hispanics they aren’t welcome, and quit complaining because they vote against republicans. those illegal kids are American as Taco Bell, and you’re telling them they aren’t welcome. Baby boomers are over the hill, the great buffalo herds are gone, the times they are a changin. when life gives you lemons (try to think out of the box)you don’t make lemonade you go look for the guy who life gave them Tequila.
You CLEARLY have never learned the meaning of *I*L*L*E*G*A*L*.
Hispanics are welcome.
But you choose to buy into the Leftist propaganda mantra.
YOU want to REWARD lawbreakers?!
To h*ll with you!
My wife is an immigrant from the Philippines. I have no problems with legal immigrants from any nation. I do have a problem with scofflaws and criminals who make the process of immigrating harder for everyone else though their line jumping and law breaking. The whole process would be faster and cheaper for everyone if the USA as a people didn’t have to waste so much money and effort dealing with the criminal individuals who can not be bothered to follow the process.
This isn’t an anti-Hispanic issue for me, it is certainly an anti-law breaker issue though. I don’t care if they are even “white” Canadians or British, don’t break our laws and expect a warm welcome for it. The only reason Hispanics are getting a bad rap in general over it is because of our long porous boarder with the economically depressed Mexico. I sympathise with their desire to come here, and simply want them to wait their turn like everyone else who follows the law.
no the cincinnatus john is just being sarcastic. too bad i was hoping to find someone to agree with.
I have no issue with immigrants. It’s the criminals who came here illegally that I have an issue with. Allowing the children of criminals to stay is rewarding the criminal behavior of the parent.
You wouldn’t reward the child of someone who robbed, raped, or murdered somone because their parents committed robbery, rape, or murder would you? Too harsh language for you? Ok then what if their parents just trashed your car instead? Would you be willing to give their kid a college education because they trashed your car?
In baseball terms, Patrick Reddy just wrote a column that batted 1 for 13; the one hit being a budget freeze idea that I like, but fear would only give the Obama media arm, the mainstream media, a whole bunch of ammunition with which to attack Republicans being, among other things, racist monsters who take breakfasts out of the mouths of school children.
I won’t even go into Reddy’s motivation except maybe to speculate that he wanted to come up with an idea that, on the face of it, sounded like a good one for an article, but, like spoiled food that looks okay, isn’t able to face the scrutiny of the nose of simple commenters. To my sense of politics, Reddy’s ideas stink.
I especially wretched at the naivete of the suggestion to reduce the COLA, a wonderfully effective way to lose a huge segment of the senior citizen vote when many of them seem like the last bastion of common sense and devotion to a country in dire need of smart Republican ideas.
When Romney ran for President to me, a senior citizen, it seemed only common sense that Mitt would attack Obama’s disastrous first four years; successful for a mole out to destroy America, but disastrous for America. Obama’s desire to take apart and neuter the military stuck me as suicidal.
Taking apart the world’s best healthcare system and installing one that will raise premiums to the stratosphere where only the Hubble Telescope can spot them was a true Obama attack on the health of America, equivalent in destructive intent to the health of the Polish Jews to the September 1, 1939 Nazi attack on Poland.
I’m not even commenting on the catastrophic affect ObamaCare will have on getting a doctor’s visit.
Suffice to say, Obama’s ObamaCare when fully dropped into the laps of the American people will wake up America, like McDonald’s hot coffee, to a new day like August 9, 1945 woke up so many Japanese to the notion that bombing Pearl Harbor was not an example of one of Japan’s most enlightened decisions. It bombed in every sense of the word.
Romney’s battle plan, however, concentrated on defense not offense.
On the other hand, in attacking Romney, Obama called him everything from a wife killer and felon to somebody who delights in firing workers and outsourcing jobs.
To attack Obama, you accuse him of giving secrets to the NY Times, of offering secrets to the Russians after he’s re-elected, of squandering tax money in a gazillion different ways. Criticizing Duke Lacrosse players, criticizing George Zimmerman while tacitly approving the delight Bob Menendez takes in especially young, nubile Mexican girls in the manner of any pervert that belongs in prison. Talking about a non-existent war on women while ignoring the Muslim war on women.
The disgust I have for Obama, in fact, is usually reserved for perverts. The disgust I have for the Reddy article is less vile. My fellow commenters have pretty much torn it to shreds, much like Obama with critical help from Sotomayor and Roberts are doing to the Constitution.
Destroying his chances at election, Romney’s advisers, talent challenged buddies and cronies, many in number but poorly chosen, were pitifully short on knowledge and experience and creative talent. In fact, I’d call them wanting to the nth degree. Don Draper they weren’t.
They reminded me of communication people okay at typing but idiots when it came to typing smart ideas, ones capable of shaking Obama to the core, impacting voters and taking the attack to the anointed one.
When it comes to attacking, these Romney mini minds would tell you France’s Maginot Line was born of an offensive, tactical genius.
If you pro-offered the fact that a Black Caucus, in itself, is a prime target for attack, Mitt would probably say he doesn’t understand. Unfortunately, nobody yesterday, today or probably tomorrow understood either. That’s how elections are won and lost.
I’d sit here at this keyboard, cats making me type from my lap, sending Mitt the military cable: Attack Attack Attack.
It reminded me of Nimitz telling Halsey, who fell for a Jap trap and was lured away from the battle of Leyte Gulf, “The world wants to know where you are.”
Incidentally, Halsey was lucky the war ended when it did. He was about to be booted out of the Navy for incompetence.
Speaking of incompetence,I called Romney’s offices before the last debate to try to get somebody to mention to Mitt that it might be a good idea to expose the emperor with no clothes by exploding the disaster of Benghazi point by point. Letting four Americans die by not authorizing a rescue try by special forces.
You know what happened.
Mitt assiduously avoided the discussion like a politician who wanted to lose in the style of Billy Buck letting a ground ball slip through his legs (World Series vs Mets, Oct. 25, 1986). If you wanted Romney to win, you know what it was like to live in Boston the day after the ball went through the slippery wickets.
Mr. Ruddy, you don’t win games by making errors or win political wars by making errors in judgment. You don’t attack Democrats by raising taxes. In fact, you obviously don’t know how to attack Democrats.
Or don’t want to.
Mr. Reddy, usually reading these columns is time well spent.
Yours, in all honesty, was time totally wasted.
“In January of 2013, Gallup reported that only 14% of Americans approved of how Congress was doing its job.”
Yet voters don’t bother to take stock of the notion that there might be a correlation between their voting patterns (consistently reelecting the same sorry lot election after election) & their dismal assessment of how said Congress is doing its job. Perhaps it’s high time someone pointed this out to them.
I have a better idea, let all of US end the two party cartel in charge! We are a free people right? Let us test the water! We can do allot better than the trained establishment choices. The first action will be to return selections of Senators back to the states by the people!
I am sure not many heard this story:
Hip-Hop and the Politics of Social Engineering: Lupe Fiasco, Jay-Z and Barack Obama’s Inauguration By Timothy Alexander Guzman Global Research, February 03, 2013
http://www.globalresearch.ca/hip-hop-and-the-politics-of-social-engineering-jay-z-lupe-fiasco-and-barack-obamas-inauguration/5321605
http://allagisc.blogspot.com/
“I have a great idea…”
Republicans should definitely:
1) Say nothing about American culture and traditions, since changing them has absolutely nothing to do with spending enormous amounts of money or statist control. /sarc
2) Bend over and kiss the progressives’ posterior even more than they do already.
3) Have completely open USSA borders for everybody in the world, and pretend that they will all become Republican voters.
4) Officially change their name to the Stupid Party.
The reality is this… Democrats are the party of the enemy, and Republicans are the party of traitors.
Here are the rules for getting people to vote for you:
1. Believe in something. Low taxes and low spending, give me a break. All you guys did was spend during the Bush period and youv’e done little under O’Dismal except meaningless legislation and raise the debt celing.
2. Get the fraud out of the elections–and that means you,too. The spectacle that you produced in Alaska to get Lisa Murkowsky reelected was reminicent of a banana republic.
3. Build that danged fence from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, complete with sensors. Its been over ten years since 9/11 and you’ve done pathetically little. Tell your fat cat donors to pay people properly and above board.
4. Stop the stupid wars. We are tired of our people being used for cannon fodder. Either bomb the hell of the mosques and other hiding places or don’t bother getting us in wars.
5. Stop pussy footing around with the MuBros. They are pure evil. And get the madrassas out of the U.S. Shut down mosques preaching jihad. And stop all the foreign aid as we can’t afford it. Tell them grow their own economies so their own people can prosper.
6. Learn how to communicate. Study Ronald Reagan. He could so it can be done.
7. Propose a VAT tax without first repealing the income tax and you’ll be dead as a party.
PattyMor — I agree with most of your points! However, the corruption thats destroyed the nation comes from all the private sector special interest groups and their wealth and power to control and corrupt the electoral process and literally write most of the congressional economic, social issues, foreign relations, foreign trade, domestic commerce and regulatory bills within congress. Unless and untill ALL these corrupted special interest groups and their lobbyists are BARRED from open access to the government and left with only the access of common citizens to the government and the electoral process, there is little hope for Americas future.
“Stop the stupid wars.”
Republicans haven’t been in charge of foreign policy since 2008. The guy starting wars lately — without Congressional approval; no debate at all — has a “D” after his name.
Foreign relations policy framework is NOT conducted by political parties nor on four-year time frames. The master plan for foreign relations strategies was drawn up just after WWII and implementation was started in 1947. The CFR and other intellectual foreign relations policy think tanks provide the ongoing foreign relations strategies. It all operates on a ‘if then – go to’ strategy basis depending on whats happening where and not happening where. A president essentially only deals with certain circumstantial outcomes and military interdictions. Military organizational structures and interdiction repsonses are even controlled 99.999% by ‘external’ policy makers. Its all very long range contingency policies and planning!
I hate these cookbook “how do we save the GOP” articles.
Keep it simple, stupid.
First we root out the career politicians (cf, Lugar), who have long since shed their backbones (basically all of the old fools who just voted to send advanced U.S. arms to the Egyptian Brotherhood — see McCarthy’s latest article at NRO), and replace them with young, principaled Tea-Party Republicans who do not see losing an election as a life-ending event.
P.S., as for the VAT tax: the LAST thing we need is a *new* layer of taxation. No New Taxes. The only way a VAT would be acceptable is if it totally replaced the Income Tax. Which would be fine by me, because that would amount to a Flat Tax.
Doing away with the Department of Energy and giving their role to the EPA seems like pure bs. Both of these nut job agencies need to go. If every one of these jerks were fired, the GDP would grow by 10% for the next 5 years and we would not miss one of their dumb ass policies. Not trying to be critical but why not 50 or 5 or 15 but the thirteen you have are either obivous or lame. Never use the words Carbon Tax in my presense again. Shows you have been sleeping with the enemy.
Those who prescribe rational courses for any political party to “right the ship” should also consider that the founders did not countenance universal suffrage and considered “democracy” to be a form of mob rule. If that does not adjust your thinking then spend some time watching “Jaywalking” (or maybe just read lots of comment threads on the internet).
Perhaps it might be educational to observe the proportion of the white male vote that goes to particular candidates and then wonder what it was that really changed as the 20th Century progressed.
The above is not to argue that 19th Century America was on a right path, nor that any errors of that time were corrected, but I do argue that rationality has never had a lot to do with politics and we really do not have much reason to expect that to change.
“Vote, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.” – A. Bierce
Of course they considered “democracy” to be mob rule – because that is exactly what it is!
“Democracy” is what put the moslem brotherhood and the ayatollahs in power in their respective countries.
We have a Republic.
“We have a [Banana] Republic.”
FTFY.
“Investigate the possibility of reducing American forces in Germany.”
The government and DOD are way ahead of you. Read the Army Times, Military Times or any number of online def/intell sources. Not really sure how you’re equating such a move to reduction in DOD costs since some units are being deactivated and new units activated for the redesign and increased deployments in the newer african and the once SEATO pacific command.
Most everything else represented as reform points does not take into account any negative impact they might have on the ongoing economic environment. Cutting and slashing has consequences for which just may not be so good within certain variable factors of the times! Follow unemployment, the increasing poverty classes, social benefits, the GDP, foreign trade imbalances, the widening wealth disparity gap, offshore investments and outsourcing, etc.
Yeah, and besides, ALL of this will be lost on the low-information voter, who gets her news from The View, NBC, and the local evening news. Germany? Huh?
If the GOP wants a platform, how about this:
1. Hands off our guns.
2. Hands off our toilets (No Lo Flo).
3. Hands off our incandescent light bulbs. If it’s good enuf for Edison, that’s all that matters.
4. Hands off our cars. (27.5 mpg CAFE is good enuf.)
1. Stop conflating social conservatism with fiscal conservatism. In light of that, stop crucifying fiscal conservatives who don’t endorse hyper-social-conservatism. (Smaller government means just that, not government that meddles in what you want, just not what the other guy wants. The fact remains that social conservatives do NOT want the same thing as fiscal conservatives–they are merely liberals with a different agenda.)
And what, exactly, *is* a “hyper social conservative” in your book?
Government reform is good, but go BIG.
You don’t get rid of one Cabinet agency. You go after a slew of them.
Keep the Department of Commerce – but consolidate into it the current Departments of Commerce, Labor, Agriculture, Transportation, and non-nuclear portions of the Department of Energy. Nuclear portions go to the Navy.
If you really want to go for the gold, rework the Department of Defense, State Department, and Homeland Security. Form a War Department, which includes the Army, Air Force, and Civil Defense (a better-run FEMA). Ditch TSA. Form an independent Navy Department with the Navy, Marine Corps, and Foreign Service.
Then start consolidating welfare programs.
Above all, go after regulatory agencies. Zero their budgets. STRICTLY regulate access to firearms by Federal agencies. Require special warrants for Federal officials to carry arms – then cut that number by at least a third. No full-auto, period.
You assume that the parasites in D.C. are interested in what’s good for the U.S.
An unwarranted assumption, that.
New taxes. To pay for a bloated government. Great idea, why didn’t we think of this before.
Eliminate incumbency.
Get rid of term limits, but mandate instead that no one serve consecutive terms.
100% turn around every election. Anyone who doesn’t stand out with a good record, anyone who stinks the place up with cronyism–they don’t go back.
VAT, my @ss. That money I have in the bank already had the cr@p taxed out of it once. Not again, pal.
Lame, and not nearly enough.
Here is a better list:
1. Shut down at least 3 major departments of the Federal Government:
Education, HUD, and Transportation wouldn’t be missed for 5 minutes. There are 14 departments, but there should only be 6 at the most.
2. Roll back all Federal salaries of more than $50,000/yr by 25%, except sitting judges (constitution), soldiers in harms way and all non-officer soldiers.
3. Shed all lands other than “Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful Buildings” (Art I Sec. 8). Even Parkland should be spun off or sold.
4. Repeal all mandates for state action in connection with federal programs. If its a program that is not within the Constitution such as Medicaid and food stamps. It should be repealed.
I could go on, but you get the idea. The time has come to wrestle the Federal monster to the ground before it eats alive.
“Even Parkland should be spun off or sold.”
Whoa! I’m all for halving the federal government, and then halving it again, but please leave our national parks out of it. Yosemite? Grand Canyon? Mesa Verde? Yellowstone? Olympic National Forest? Over my dead CONSERVATIVE body.
Thats the problem Frank! Everybody has their own special interest government perks they’re not willing to give up. Other than military installations and government buildings, the federal government has NO legitimate needs for land ownership and a huge protion of the nations natural resources. ALL the federally seized land and resources should be returned to the rightful owners –the states and its peoples!
In much of The West and Alaska “park” designation is just a way to lock land up to prevent development. There is a vast system of parks, preserves, reserves, and National Forests that exist solely to keep the land in federal rather than state or private hands. For example, the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve is absolutely indistinguishable from the State of Alaska and Native lands that surround it and “reserve” is merely a name attached to that particular plot of land in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act to prevent either the State of Alaska or a Native Corporation from selecting the land. National Petroleum Reserve Alaska, designated Naval Petroleum Reserve Four by President Harding, is near ANWR has had little petroleum exploration and greenie obstinance prevents development of this long-known oil and gas province.
Since Clinton “National Forest” has essentially become just another wilderness designation as most National Forests are as closely regulated as the designated Wilderness areas. The Chugach National Forest in Alaska has very little useable forest for timber production, the original intent of National Forests, and was created so that the government could invalidate mining patents and thus prevent Alaska coal from competing with Lower 48 coal to fire the then-coal fired Pacific Fleet. Interestingly, the Kennecott Copper interests had enough swack to protect their patents, railway right of way, etc., but today even that property is largely withing the federal Wrangell-St. Elias Park and Preserve though the State has managed to hold on to the Copper River and Northwestern Railway right of way from Kennicott/McCarthy to the Gulf of Alaska at Cordova. Resistance from the greenies and NIMBYs has prevented the State from putting the railway right of way to any real use however. Unlike much of the so-called parkland, much of the Wrangell-St. Elias area is truly spectacular and in many was moreso than Mt. McKinley. Mt. Logan on the Alaska-Yukon border is only a couple hundred feet shorter than McKinley and is surrounded by dozens of peaks over 10K feet. If you ever fly to Alaska from Seattle sit on the starboard side of the plane. If the weather is decent the scenery is spectacular from Yakutat through the approach to Anchorage. If it is clear, you get a “two-fer” because after seeing Mt. Logan and the St. Elias range, you can see Mt. McKinley, Mt. Foraker, and Mt. Hunter as you line up for ANC.
“Ms. Soto was a ‘two-fer’: female and Latin.”
Really, she was? So I guess the whole Irish half of her is irrelevant, then?
Get back to us when you find the job ad that states:
Equal Opportunity Employer
Irish encouraged to apply
Until then, “the whole Irish half of her is irrelevant” pretty much. It’s certainly less than 3/5ths of a half person.
“Support bipartisan immigration reform”
They did that already, in 1986. The beneficiaries of that amnesty, about 2.7 million of them, were naturalized mostly from 1989-1991. The last time a Republican presidential candidate won California? Just before those naturalizations, in 1988.
That amnesty bore the name of a Republican senator, Alan Simpson, was passed by a Republican senate, and was signed by a Republican president. How much credit did Republicans get for it from Hispanics?
This new amnesty, if passed, will be signed by a Democratic president. Why should Republicans think they’ll get any credit for it at all?
I would suggest looking at constitutional amendments. Even if not passed, they can make the democrats go on the defensive for “big government”. Some examples:
1) Every elected and presidential appointed federal official has their salary and pension reduced by 1% for every year the federal government runs a deficit. The reduction is permanent for the position and can not be raised until the government has a surplus for at least 5 years.
2) If either the house or the senate do not pass a budget for the following year by Oct 1, then for every seat of the body that didn’t pass a budget must stand for a special election on the second Tuesday of January of the following year and current members of that body are prohibited from running. If both bodies pass a budget but congress as a whole can’t pass a budget, then both house and senate must stand for a special election on the second Tuesday of January for the following year and current members of that body are prohibited from running. If congress passes a budget, the president can not veto the budget.
3) Any elected or presidential appointed official that retires and then lobbies the federal government or works for an organization that has more than 10% of their revenues from federal government contracts is subject to a 90% income tax for any amount of income greater than the 5 year average income prior to their taking the government position.
While those on the “inside” wouldn’t like these, they would be great for making the democrats squirm. The GOP has 21 states in which they control the legislature and the governor’s seat. That is a good start towards getting 2/3 of the states to call a constitutional convention. Make the democrats defend why the government shouldn’t pass a budget, why the top dogs shouldn’t share some of the pain when they run a deficit and why there should be a revolving door between government on lobbyist.
Do you really want a res publica that elected Comrade Obama to elect delegates to a Constitutional Convention? Sorry, I’ll work with what we have. I wouldn’t let the vast majority of Americans near a sharp instrument and certainly wouldn’t let them near a constitution.
For example, regulation of oil and gas drilling can be done by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Yecchhh. The EPA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Green religion, looking to abolish oil and gas drilling regardless of the cost to society. Put that regulation under Department of the Interior, and defund EPA.
I disagree with most of your ideas and you have some erroneous facts. The budget “surplus” under Clinton did not ocur because of his tax increases. It occurred from increasing revenues from the capital gains tax cut in 1997. Here are my ideas:
1. Ignore the Bushes and run on Ronald Reagan and Reagonomics
2. Educate the public that tax cuts have always lead to economic growth and increased revenues, see 1921, 1961, 1981, 1986, 1997 (capital gains tax cut), and 2003 (cut in dividend taxes).
3. That this nation was founded on the notion that the role of government was to protect indibidulalliberty, not group rights, or distribution.
3. That this nation was founded upon the laws of nature and nature’s God, not on whatever social science notion that is in vogue. (this brings the notion of absolutes, which can be powerful whn applied to economics).
4. Show how a strong and stable dollar brought growth and prosperit in the ’80′s and ’90′s despite divergent economic policies
5. Tout the economioc success of Republican controlled states vs. the failure of Democratic controlled states
6. Define the Democrats as the party of greed (becasie they can never take away enough of other people’s money)and do not let their definitions of us go unreplied.
7. Define the Democrats as the enemies of success
8. Like the idea of exposing waste and fraud in government spending. do that and then legislate to get rid of it. And promise not to touch entitlements until descretionary spending is under control
9. open up the debate about the proper role of the Federal government in our society and be willing to eliminate spendign and programs that overstep tose bounds.
10. Make it illegal to spend the Social Security Surplus if we ever have one again. The surplus should be used to purchase certificates of deposit and saved for future generations.
GORE, DESTROYER OF DISABILITY AND THE DRAFT
Vice-President Gore’s money-saving plan had interesting results. He discovered the government had three systems for identifying and classifying jobs. One system of 900 was operated by the Federal Reserve. Another of 1200 was by the Treasury. The third and most expensive was used by the Department of Labor, identifying, classifying, and quantifying around 18,000 Occupations (or more?). Vice-President Gore first wanted to use the 900 occupations and dump the rest. Then cooler heads prevailed and they retained the 1200 occupations and dumped the rest. This saved a lot of money. The presence of consequences was ignored. The Department of Labor adapted by using one general method of classifying jobs, the Guide to Occupational Exploration, which helped people to find jobs or better jobs. The Dictionary of Occupational Titles and its auxiliary volumes were terminated. The two peripheral victims of this massacre were unnoticed.
One was Social Security Disability. There is a sequence of five basic questions or steps to disability: Still working? Have very little reduction in impairment? With a condition precluding past work are there skills transferable to other work? Able to do unskilled work though lacking in skills?
Steps 4 and 5 require accurate identification of past work as performed in the national economy and as performed in the claimant’s specific jobs, plus identification of the job skills learned. At step 5, the limitations can be compared to the extensive breakdown of job demands to see how extensive the loss of capacity for unskilled work is. Steps 4 and 5 are very difficult to impossible to do without the Department of Labor analysis of occupations. Since Gore’s action, Social Security Disability has been sort of thrashing around. The rehabilitation industry offers to do the analysis of jobs done by the Department of Labor, for the usual fees. Gore, apparently a friend of the tort industry, did not see any down side to his action.
The Dictionary of Occupational Titles was written during the Depression to enable getting people jobs other than applying at the workplace, as there was not standard method of describing jobs and capabilities in language etc. When WWII approached, it was a major factor in the Draft. It enabled draft boards to stop political pull and fraud in draft exemptions. It enabled industry to keep workers who had skills which would take a year or two of training to replace, and so on.
This eliminated the fraud-festival draft shenanigans of WWI. For example, they established bandage-rolling as a draft-exempt job. It is so unskilled that it is something which could be done by a reasonably teachable primate. Privileged sons acquired avid interest in bandage-rolling. The Civil War was better as a replacement could be hired to substitute for a draftee, at a fixed replacement rate. That system would work now, changed to have the rate worked out between draftee and replacement, and with the military getting a replacement as mentally and physically capable as the draftee.
With the Department of Labor analysis of occupations gone, A DRAFT COULD BE DONE ONLY ON WORLD WAR I TERMS, WHICH WERE WORSE THAN THOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR. Social Security Disability continues on with its gaping wound; SSD will say there is nothing amiss, but that is how government is.
unfortunately, your #7 ‘strengthen the american family’ has, so far, been translated by the GOP to ‘dump on gay citizens’.