A lot has been made recently of the "runaway spending" of the GOP controlled Congress and its apparent lack of conservative principles.

I'd like to look at the causes of this and explore what the real dynamic is.

Start with George W. Bush. Although Bush is a Republican, he is not really conservative in the classic sense. In fact, he came to Washington with his "Compassionate Conservatism". Under this new model of conservatism, he has not shied away from big government programs such as the Medicare prescription drug bill, increasing the Education budget so fast it makes your head spin, etc.

Sure Bush is conservative on some issues, but if you really examine his stances and his statements, his beliefs do not coincide well with traditional Conservative voters.

Here's a review of the book "The Imposter" in which this is summed up fairly nicely. link.



Bush is not staunchly pro-life, he's a 'tweener: allowing exceptions for rape and incest. If your stance on abortion is based on morality, these exceptions aren't acceptable to most fundamentalist Christians. Bush signed the ban on partial birth abortion bill, but many pro-life groups felt it was next to useless. He signed McCain-Feingold, expanded the NEA, and on and on.

Conservatives like how he has defended the country, how he has cut taxes, and how he talks a good game on several social issues. They especially like him because he is not a Democrat.

Questions for debate:

Is it Bush that has made Congress spend so much money?

Bush is the undoubted leader of the Republican Party, but has he led the Republicans away from the Conservative ranch?

He's surely no Ronald Reagan, but definitely no Bill Clinton. He actually fed a large portion of moderate America and filled a need for a stand on morality after the Clinton administration. Was it 100% true and worth-while?? Probably not... but from a Republican voter's perspective it worked.

McCain Feingold was a bill that really benefited American politics as opposed to standing on a party line. It was more necessary than partisan in my opinion. Expanding the NEA is a different story.

Of course the President hasn't made Congress spend all that money. All of our congressmen/women are elected leaders with ideas of their own. The president, contrary to popular opinion, has less power than Congress. It's been a bi-partisan hoot-en-nanny financially, both with the war (yes- congress controls military spending and the way the war is fought) as well as with domestic matters.

What would be good for America and the GOP? A more true republican, a fiscal conservative who believes in defense yet doesn't start military incursions without a clearly defined objective. Someone that can reign Congress into allowing Generals finish the war in Iraq and not completely unqualified Congressional leaders that haven't even been in a fist fight much less a war.

America's not ready for a feel-good Liberal, but congress might be able to use one or two more. Maybe a few level headed moderates wouldn't kill us either... GW has helped to ruin the image of Southern Republicans and cause a distaste in the mouths of a large portion of his own voting base.

Is it Bush that has made Congress spend so much money?

You mean, with the power of his soaring poll numbers? No, I don't think so. Legislation is the realm of, well, the legislative branch, so only a very strong executive should be able to force Congress to bend to his will. I don't think that is the case here...however, neither do I think Congress has rammed this down Bush's throat either. They both seemed in it together...all part of that vast right-wing conspiracy, you know.

Bush is the undoubted leader of the Republican Party, but has he led the Republicans away from the Conservative ranch?

Again, I wouldn't put this necessarily on Bush, but there's little doubt the ranch is farther away now than when he came into office. Except for the tax cuts, it is hard to see anything that was done to further the conservative agenda. Personally, I think it is the party itself that has been straying from the ranch...Bush has just been along for the ride. If the party isn't careful, when (if?) they get back to the ranch, they will discover that a lot of the herd is gone. That new Libertarian place over the hill is looking kinda nice, and there's always the possibility of some new reformer coming into town and starting up his own spread...maybe rebuilding that nice herd the Reform party had going for a while there.

Led them away? He has picked them up, loaded them into a cannon and shot them away from conservatism...Unless you're talking about social conservatism. In the case of social conservatism the Republicans are solidly "conservative" in that the government should be small in size and powerful in law. That however, is not Bush's fault, he hasn't led the Republican Party into Christian Conservative territory...Value voters have. When I say value voters aloud I actually get angry a little bit because it is incomprehensible to me that something as simple as "we think it's immoral so ban it" has apparently become a fair pervasive brand of political thought. But I digress, no Bush hasn't led the party into Judeo-Christian Conservatism, he's just led them into fiscal liberalism.

In fairness, part of the blame for the Judeo-Christian-izing of conservatism in this country does fall on the hapless [but soon to be powerful] Democratic Party. Instead of explaining why enforcing morality is wrong, they decided to play the "who goes to Church more often" game and pretend to connect with value voters. What they should be doing is intelligently and calmly stating why what Joe Citizen does should be independent of what Jane Citizen thinks is moral...God if only we had an opposition party in this country.

CP

Questions for debate:

Is it Bush that has made Congress spend so much money?
No, he hasn't "made" them spend so much, but he certainly has failed to rein them in. There are lucresonic emanations in the Senate and House Chambers that eliminate most, if not all, spending restraint possessed by Congresscritters. This affects almost all such Critters, and they seem to be especially susceptible whenever the smell of pulled pork is in the air.

Bush is the undoubted leader of the Republican Party, but has he led the Republicans away from the Conservative ranch?
No, I don't think he's led them away, but he's not bothered to keep them on the ranch, and he's spent a fair bit of time off it himself. Unfortunately, a significant number of our RepubliCritters are mighty inclined to be wandering the Moderate Prairie and even the Progressive Badlands, if they think doing so will make them more popular.

Actually, I think it's his low poll numbers that have been instrumental in leading the Republicans away from their ideological groundings. The lower his poll numbers get, the more he feels he needs to swing to the left in order to make himself look more like a "uniter". At the same time, the lower his numbers get, the easier it is to paint him as extremist. So the upshot: he swings to the left, anyone to the right of him becomes a real extremist, and since few people want to be stuck with that label in the current climate, he ends up dragging his entire party to the left with him.

I would agree with the first part of this...it is indeed perhaps his low poll numbers that are drawing him farther to the left. This also goes with his general philosophy as a uniter though, too...he was that way in Texas as well. So, he likely would have done this regardless of his poll numbers.

What is missing from here, though, is that the Republican Party is ALSO going farther and farther to the right...the religious right. It could also be his low poll numbers that are causing this, in an attempt to raise his standing among what some (Rove) might consider to be his core constituency. I don't think this is Bush's inherent philosophy, as it isn't what he campaigned on, and it wasn't present when he was governor of Texas.

Is it really, though? About the most significant way in which this could be said to be happening is with the new funding guidelines for "faith-based" charities. First of all, this represents more government involvement in the social sphere, and secondly, a number of religious rightists have expressed apprehension that this could end up undermining the solidly religious nature of these charities, by bringing them more under federal control.

Similarly, new federal funding for "abstinence education", though it may seem on the surface like a conservative thing to do, actually represents a rather fundamental departure from traditional conservative thinking, which holds that it's the job of parents, not the state, to teach kids about the dos and don'ts of sex.