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Desperate Times?
I often feel that the basic disagreement between Status Quo Conservatives and the more radical Tear-it-Down conservatives is between those who think the government is basically doing a good job — with perhaps some adjustments needed at the fringes (think of Speaker Paul Ryan’s budget plans) — and those who see a $20 trillion debt bomb and growing government tyranny and are desperately seeking a fix. I am in the second camp. Moreover, I think we all can agree that Congress, for one reason or another, does not lead the nation. Nevertheless, there certainly are good people in both the House and Senate who would follow a president who was willing to take the heat for proposing and executing on a radically constitutionalist platform.
Which brings me to why Senator Ted Cruz has always been on my shortlist. Any anti-status quo leader has to be able to take the heat and stay in the kitchen: this is precisely what Cruz did in the Senate. People hated and ridiculed him, and he kept at it, without getting defensive or losing his cool. I can only imagine what it is like to be in that position and not taking it personally.
We are, indeed, in desperate times. Sooner or later, the other economic shoe will drop. We can still (sort of) get ahead of it. And we surely will need a president who is willing to do what needs doing, while not leaving the path of a constitutionalist, limited government.
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I absolutely join you in the second camp. The last thing we need is a different manager for a debt funded welfare state and unrestrained extra judicial punitive bureaucracy no matter how handsome and charismatic.
We don’t need an adjustment we need a tear down back to our Constitutional roots. It will not be done easily, kindly, by gathering consensus or reaching across an aisle.
Great post iWe.
A representative with minor goals but proven efficacy is likely to change little — the same as one with large goals but a paltry legislative history.
But the one talking a big game encourages voters to aim high, puts the focus where it belongs, and at least offers some slim hope of a surprise victory on major issues.
If Cruz becomes President and is handicapped by a plethora of enemies in Congress and beyond, he will yet be a better President than one who teaches citizens to demand little of significance.
Don’t worry so much!
As I’m sure someone will be along to tell you soon Stalin surely can’t be aware we’re chained up in the Lubyanka.
And how about that Speaker Ryan? He does his homework, unlike certain senators so blinded by ambition they drag the party down into a terrifying primary rather than spend time learning issues and keeping promises.
Why couldn’t Marco Rubio have learned from him?!
I agree with your priorities and all you say. Now we just have to help him figure out a way to appeal to the general public. There has to be a way to turn that around–all though indicting Hillary would certainly help!
Washington is the city of inertia. You need someone with an iron will to change it. Rubio, while not a bad candidate, would be a holding action, while Cruz (or Walker for that matter) would be interested in rolling back the state.
Right now, I’d imagine there is significant support for closing out chronically broken government agencies (privatize the VA and TSA) and removing lots of government regulations. I work in the regulatory sector, and there is so much deadwood you could likely delete 10% of the rules completely at random without incident.
If Cruz was feeling bold, he could move all of the rulemaking bodies under Congressional control. No more executive branch writing laws, now Congress controls all the regulations by appointing panels of experts like the President does currently. If Cruz wanted a true epic task worthy of legend, he could try to fix the military procurement system. That would both save money and support American national defense, which is an extremely rare combination.
Entitlement reform is nowhere near the popularity of shrinking government, unfortunately, but I’d expect some stuff like Obamacare could be repealed and replaced with a free market / smaller government solution.
And it is when things are at their worst that we need the Constitution the most.
I thought having Congress vote on all laws would be enough, but Congress controlling the experts is brilliant!
We could take one department and try this approach. Since we do not need a Department of Education, how about starting there?
I disagree. I think the basic disagreement concerns acceptance of political realities. IMHO, Paul Ryan appreciates the problems we face as well or better than anyone but he also appreciates what can be realistically accomplished when a large portion of the American public will not accept the type of spending cuts and entitlement changes others propose.
I agree that we need to take political reality into account.
Which means we need to do what needs to be done while working like hell to convince the American people we’re doing the right thing.
When the public doesn’t like something the left is doing, the left does everything it can to change public opinion while taking concrete steps to forward their agenda in the meantime.
We look at a scary poll and decide it’s hopeless until that magical day in 2048 when magically the public agrees with us.
Simple fact of the matter is we don’t have time to wait.
Reasonable point, but why should those of us who fund these programs accept the onerous taxation? Do we not have a Constitution to protect the minority from the tyranny of majority?
No. Opinion polls trump the Constitution. That’s what the Founders wanted.
Or maybe not. But who cares what they think. They’re all dead, but Gallup is alive and well.
The left waited more than 40 years to implement national healthcare. They waited until they had control of the House, a filibuster proof Senate, and a president willing to take the political hit by signing unpopular legislation.
The concrete steps you speak of require being in position to take them.
Whether we like it or not, our system makes change difficult.
We have a Constitution designed to temper the rule of the majority but I do not see how that helps elected officials force unpopular change on the people.
I’m well aware of how much time the left spent making what we’ve got. I’ll even take your forty years and raise you another sixty.
However, we simply don’t have the luxury to take that long ourselves.
And I’ll admit I’m a bit tired of being told I don’t understand how difficult it is to change things. I’m beyond aware, but it has to be done anyway.
I am all for moving the dial.
If a President put on the table the elimination of half the federal government, he might actually get rid of a quarter of it. That would be great!
We need to move the center. If Cruz revokes all Obama executive orders, and encourages Congress to defund the EPA, etc. etc., the question stops being “what should we do?” and turns into “how far should we go?”
This is the premise of the original post: only the President can lead sufficiently to move the dial about what constitutes a reasonable position.
I think the bigger fissure is between those who see the urgent need to solve the problems we’re facing and those who think we can wait another twenty years.
Yes, some of my fellow radicals are unrealistic regarding what can be done and when. Some of my moderate opponents are unrealistic regarding what needs to be done and when.
There’s a danger to going to far in either direction, and sometimes we idealists need pragmatists to keep us in check.
However, sometimes pragmatists can get so bogged down with what we can’t do that they forget both what we can and must do.
Like I’ve written before, we need to work together on this.
Are you suggesting a coup? A revolution?
I am suggesting that we start by electing Cruz and then backing him up.
I also have suggested in the past that we encourage the secessionists in states like Texas.
I’m all for you on the former, the latter has a problematic history impossible to overcome.
So our options are complete stagnation like we’ve had or a coup? Seriously?
For example, we’ve had both houses of Congress, and together they could have re-structured the appropriations process so that we’re not left with this idiotic choice between fund the entire federal government or fund none of it.
Or maybe pick one (even just one) program conservatives are dying to kill and fund the entire government except that program. Force the President to defend closing down essential services just for Planned Parenthood. When he hits back (and he will) call attention to the videos.
Most of us wouldn’t embrace the title of “moderate”. If “moderate” means, as it did during the Bush administration, go-along to get along, large increases in spending, never vetoing any spending bills, resisting efforts to stop pork-barrel spending, government bailouts for banks and other industries that were were too big to fail, and dragging your feet or outright opposing Paul Ryan’s entitlement reform (hello, Newt!), then no, we (or I) wouldn’t embrace the title of moderate.
If it means that I don’t think we should go back to the policies of 1899, then sure. But I doubt a lot of people other than libertarian ideologues on right-wing blogs are in support of that.
But I think most all of us are actually serious and realistic about what needs to be done. If you’re looking to cut spending, discretionary non-defense cuts won’t make much of a dent. Sure a lot of things could be cut (I’m looking at you, Department of Education) and reformed (welfare, etc). Some of us want to cut defense, others don’t; but either way, the only way to make a dent in the amount of federal spending is to pass entitlement reform – like Paul Ryan’s proposals, or perhaps the Erskine-Bowles proposals (need to compromise in order to pass bills) is what needs to be pushed.
No, our other option is to elect a president who wishes to tackle the problems along with the GOP controlled Congress.
It was Democrats in the Senate who obstructed the regular budget process.
A large portion of the American people had no interest in the videos. Depressing but true.
Yes, I know whatever we do that the media will portray us as monsters. They portray us as monsters when we don’t do anything, too.
Yes, it will be a fight. A big fight. A messy fight. A fight we could very well lose.
But risk-averse is getting us nowhere (note how we got smoked in 2006, even though the GOP agenda at the time was hardly ambitious). Yes, we stop the Democrats sometimes, but how about they have to stop us for a change. “It could be worse” only works for so long. At some point you’ve got to be able to tell your supporters it’s actually getting better instead of “getting worse at a slower rate.”
Moreover, we’d better figure out a way to accomplish something other than slow down the Democrats a bit when we don’t quite control the House, Presidency, and have at least sixty votes in the Senate, and even when the media’s hostile. Because the chances we’ll ever have sixty votes in the Senate are incredibly slim, and the media will always hate us.
I’ll grant that some people don’t even see the obstacles standing in our way. At the same time, some people see every single obstacle as a reason to stop. How about we see those obstacles as stuff we need to overcome?
We did that from 2003-7. Didn’t work.
I’m sure that reconciliation or some other parliamentary procedure could have been used to circumvent the filibuster. Problem seems to be too may Republicans like it this way. Or they’re afraid of being called names.
A large portion of the American people had no idea the videos existed or what happened on them. If they became the focus of a government shutdown, even middling PR skills could have changed that.
And even if it didn’t quite work the way we’d hope, at least the base might believe the GOP actually gives a damn and thus not support someone like Trump.
I’m open to new ideas but not political suicide.
The Democrats spent years trying to stop us during W’s term. Do you not recall the attempts to defund the war? They tried repeatedly and failed. They responded not by attacking Reid, Pelosi, Kerry, et al as establishment sell outs but by electing Obama.
It did work from 2003-07. We brought deficits down to a fraction of what they were and went on to be and successfully implemented the Surge in Iraq.
Reconciliation cannot be used to get appropriation bills to the floor.
Based on the exit polls I have seen, Trump support does not come from conservatives interested in shrinking government but rather using it for their own benefit.
Congressional Democrats indeed fought like tigers to get that war defunded, and in doing so they reassured their base that if they got power they would actually do what the base wanted.
They fight vocally, overtly, and do whatever they can to keep their base riled up and inspired. We fight quietly, timidly, and tell our base to keep calm and stop expecting so much.
We still had deficits, didn’t end a single federal program of note, and became famous for boondoggles like the Bridge to Nowhere.
The surge did take some fortitude, but unfortunately it came long after most of the country lost faith in the Iraq war. Thus, although we won on the battlefield, it took so long for it to happen that by the time it did happen far too few people thought it was worth it. Hence, setting up a political environment that surrendered the victory later.
It wasn’t supposed to be used for Obamacare, either, but it still happened.
When Democrats really want something, they seem to find a way. We rarely do.
Some of Trump’s support is indeed what you describe, but some of it is also people who don’t believe anything typical politicians say anymore.
Had we defunded Obama’s amnesty like lots of Republicans said they would while campaigning in 2012, it might not have stopped Trump, but it might have blunted at least some of his support.
So which is it? Do we not make them defend or do you just like the way they defend better?
If you recall, they didn’t immediately defund the war either.
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“willing to take the political hit” is what they’re missing. No spending can happen that isn’t approved by both houses of congress. Eliminate the omnibus and only send smaller spending bills to the presidents desk. Let him veto each spending program that isn’t big enough.