Travis Pahl, wrote, in part: > How about you look at this one first... > > http://reformed-theology.org/html/issue11/dont_blame_liberals.htm
Uhm. Besides the fact that most Dems these days are socialists rather than liberals.... Most people call Pataki and Guiliani "liberal" or "moderate" Republicans. I'd have trouble voting for either one of them. And yes, Reagan made a promise to Brady that he'd support something Brady thought would help. Reagan was a man of his word. Just like W. I don't always like the promises they make, but I admire them for keeping them. > > There are very few states or Congressional > > Districts where voting for a Democrat would have made that outcome more > > likely and there is no chance that voting for a Democrat for President > would > > get this bill anything but vetoed. > > No. But it is not going to happen anyhow and at least with a > democrat, the republicans would try to stop spending. With the > republican in the white house, the republican congress feels like they > need to spend like there is no tommorow. You're right there. If they don't get it under control, they're going to get clobbered one way or another. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. On the one hand, Bush has a history of destroying the Democrat party and looks like he's on target to do so again. He did it in Texas, in 1995, I think he was the only Republican statewide office-holder (other than Senators). When he left office in 2000, there were NO Dem. Statewide office-holders and the legislature was so heavily Rep. that all the Dems could do to stop stuff was leave town to prevent a quorum. I doubt Bush will manage it to the same degree nationally, but I won't entirely count him out. So, the question is, how will the Dems respond to that? Will they play to their base and go further to the left? Or, will they abandon their discredited economic issues and pick up the opportunities the Republicans leave them by continued social spending? Don't laugh, it happened before--in the '30s. Roosevelt ran for election in 1932 criticizing Hoover for attempting to fix the economy with government programs for people who were out of work. Then, when he got into office, in his famous first 100 days, he out-Hoovered Hoover by creating more government programs and spending more government money than Hoover had. (He also prolonged the Depression by doing so, but that's beside the point.) The Democrat party switched from being the party of small government to the party of big government within a decade. And because that was all that was left, the Republicans did the opposite. If the same sort of thing happens again (with the parties in opposite places) then the Democrat party will become the natural home for libertarians. On the other hand, if the Dems retreat to their socialist base, then the LP could have an opening. The Green Party would get swallowed up by the Dems desperate for any sort of electoral victory (or be pilloried for spoiling Dem politician's chances ala Nader in 2000). The Reps would become the centrist party, the LP would become a home for people unable to stomach what the Reps had become but absolutely horrified by the Dems. You could then see coalitions between Reps and LPs on economic issues (where the LPs supply votes that the Reps lose to some of their dissenters on those issues) and coalitions between Dems and LPs (and possibly Rep dissenters) on social issues. Sometimes that would work for freedom, and sometimes the Dems and Rep dissenters will work the opposite coalition to pass laws restricting freedom. The other thing is that Bush looks to be pushing some major structural reforms through which might have a much greater effect on government spending than any education bill or even bloated Pentagon budget. One of the things that has made some pro-freedom progress possible on the economic front has been the democratization of investing in this country. Reagan's IRAs weren't much when they got started. But they are probably the main reason that we now aren't demanding ever more government spending on retirement. We now have a majority of voters who invest in stocks and bonds--either directly or indirectly. That has changed the culture of this country so that people have a better understanding of economics and are more willing to take risks with the market. If it took the "Reagan deficits" to get that, they were worthwhile. Bush is proposing to push that kind of investment into Social Security and health insurance. In other words, some of the money you pay into Social Security goes into an IRA-type investment in return for a reduced (or no) payout from SS when you retire. Same sort of thing with health insurance. You pay into a tax-free account that you can buy health insurance from. This puts personally-owned policies on the same tax-level playing field as employer-paid policies. I can already hear the objections from the libertarian crowd. "Well, what's the moral basis for making me pay into my health insurance or retirement if I don't want to?" Sigh. Same one there is now--none. But you aren't going to get elected saying that in more than about 2 or three congressional districts (Ron Paul represents one). So you can go for all or nothing and get nothing. Or you can go for something that's an improvement on the current situation. Then, once you get the improvement going and people find out that it actually DOES work better than the previous system, you can try to persuade them that giving people even MORE freedom would work even better. But back to the current federal budget deficit. If we do nothing about Social Security, it's headed for disaster. If we do nothing about Medicare, it will become the "blob that ate the budget." I've heard estimates has high as 100% of the federal budget swallowed up by Medicare by some time in my lifetime. Bush is proposing to turn government from a HOLDER of retirement and medical insurance funds into a REGULATOR of the companies that hold those funds. Yes, he's still going to have a lot of requirements to satisfy the nervous ninny nellies that people won't take that money and go do something "stupid" with it. And if you want to look only at those requirements and claim that "there's not a dime's worth of difference" between Bush's proposal and the current system, then you can help keep the current system in place until it falls apart. But if you go along with Bush's proposal, you may be surprised at how quickly people using the new system start requesting even more freedom than they've just been given! Darn that'd be a terrible problem to have--popular demand for more freedom! :-) And if that happens, we may look back from 15-20 years in the future and wonder what all the fuss about the budget deficits was about. Lowell C. Savage It's the freedom, stupid! Gun control: tyrants' tool, fools' folly. _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
