Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Last Hurrah...???


Is Pat Buchanan correct? Is it too late...???

By Patrick J. Buchanan --

[This past] Saturday, Glenn Beck packed the [Capital] Mall [of Washington D.C.] with a crowd that could have filled Yankee Stadium to overflowing five times over.

[The crowd] stretched from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument[.]

Beck's believers and the tea party folks are raising hopes and expectations.

But can they succeed?

"We must not fundamentally transform America, as some would want," said Palin, in one of the direct challenges to Obama. "We must restore America."

But can we restore America, or is the old America gone forever?

Consider the issue that unites all on the Mall on Saturday - the need for the U.S. government to cut spending, to balance its budget and not to shove an immense burden of debt on our children.

Like last year, we are running a deficit of $1.4 trillion, almost 10% of the entire economy. With housing starts and housing sales plunging, jobless claims rising, the stock market sinking and economic growth slowing to a crawl, we will face a new deficit equally large in the fiscal year beginning in October. Where are the victorious tea party Republicans going to cut?

According to USA Today, 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, and perhaps an equal number on Medicare and Social Security. Which of these three will tea party Republicans cut, when Republicans are already denying Democratic charges that they plan to raise the retirement age for Social Security?

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has a 600-page plan to reform Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the tax code, the work of a conscientious conservative. But only one in 16 House Republicans has signed on as co-sponsor.

Are Republicans going to go after other entitlements - veterans benefits, earned income tax credits, food stamps - which now go to 41 million Americans, or unemployment benefits that run for 99 weeks?

With the racial achievement gap on test scores returning, will the GOP abolish "No Child Left Behind" or slash federal aid to education?

The big remaining items in the budget are interest on the debt, which must be paid, and war and defense. But Republicans are more likely to be supportive of Obama's rebuilding a military ravaged by war, and staying the course in Iraq and Afghanistan, than are Democrats.

Obama's budget commission will surely come in with tax increases on personal incomes, perhaps also for Social Security and Medicare. But the GOP cannot sign on to these and go home again.

Indeed, how can Republicans cooperate with a president who has spent the campaign blaming them for the Great Recession and telling voters the GOP intends to drag us back to the dark past of Bush II?

And why would a "Party of No" that picks up 40 or 50 House seats by its Alamo defiance become a Kumbaya, "Yes-we-can!" Party and work in happy harness with Barack Obama?

Can we really "restore America" as she once was?

According to The New York Times, Orange County, Calif. - birthplace of Richard Nixon, Goldwater Country, bastion of the John Birch Society, land of the "little old ladies in tennis shoes" - is today a place where less than half the population is Anglo and almost half speak a language other than English in the home.

Where Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter three to one in Orange County, Obama ran a near dead heat with McCain. And as Orange County goes, so goes California and so goes America.

Republicans and Tea Partiers are going to have a glorious fall.

But is this one of the last hurrahs?

2 comments:

midcon said...

All good questions. I have turned into a cynic and pessimist. I don't consider those admirable qualities in the least, but they fit the times.

Who do I have confidence in? No one. Who do I trust? Same answer.

I am convinced that the objectives of (fill in the blank with any person or group you wish, my opinion is that they all belong) are to acquire and maintain power just for sake of winning or rather beating the other guy/party/group/whatever. There is no objective regarding America unless it is an America they would remake in their own image. The message doesn't change only the messenger. (D)s don't like (R)s; (R)s don't like (D)s. Life is good when the (D)s beat the (R)s or the (R)s beat the (D)s (depending on which side of the aisle you are on. Nothing else matters to either group and their followers. Life is simpler that way because if you belong to one or the other you at least know who to hate.

I have become a Dissolutioned American, my own group of one. But I am just about at the point where I don't give a damn anymore and I hate that about myself!

William R. Barker said...

Well... (*SIGH*)...

All I can tell you, Dave, is to get involved.

I was once active in the GOP. Then the GOP betrayed my ideals.

While I haven't - and won't - ever "forgive" the GOP, I feel we have no choice but to give the GOP another shot.

Am I confident that they won't blow it...

(*SIGH*)

Hardly.

I too am in many ways "A Party of One," a "Barkerist."

I've always been a "Barkerist" - indeed... THE "Barkerist."

Who is my "ally" at this point?

It's certainly not the Democratic Party. It's certainly not "Progressive" Republicanism - or "establishment" Republicanism for that matter.

But we're stuck with the system we have. Therefore I'm supporting Reaganite Republican Dr. Nan Hayworth for Congress from NY-19 and I'll grit my teeth and vote who whichever putz the NY GOP puts up against Cuomo and the GOP challenger to that idiot Gillibrand.

I'll support Republicans like Chris Christie in Jersey (though he's not perfect; no one is) and Bobby Jindel and Jim DeMint and, yes, Sarah Palin.

(Though I have quite a few conflicts with certain of her beliefs and policies I believe she's someone to take seriously.)

All I can tell you, Dave, is "don't oversimplify." Don't throw up your hands and say they're all crooks. Matters of degree... er... matter.

At this point in time it's so crucial to defeat the Pelosi/Reid/Obama Dems that we can't afford to let our disappointment with human nature as exhibited by Republicans send us scurrying into our bunkers.

BILL