Republicans

Posted on September 30, 2008 Democrats, George W. Bush, Republicans

more on the “rescue plan”

One day after the House Republicans, with the help of a significant number of Democrats, stopped this disaster of a federal bailout, the world hasn’t collapsed. The Dow rebounded a little today after its terrible day yesterday. I still think those who voted against this bill did the right thing. I am, however, unsympathetic to the Republicans complaining about Pelosi’s partisan speech, and making that a reason to oppose the bailout. The bailout should be opposed on its lack of merit, and its expansion of government welfare to those who acted irresponsibly. Republicans haven’t been making this case, and that’s why Democrats could still win the PR war.

Some of my fellow conservatives are trying to tell us the sky is falling and that we must pass Bush’s plan NOW. Not so fast. A federal takeover of this kind must be carefully studied and discussed, and alternatives must be presented. Any acceptable plan must attempt to correct past errors as well as to hold those responsible for this mess accountable for their actions. We aren’t there yet.

To the Democrats still willing to support their Speaker, I would ask them: Doesn’t it concern you that the Bush administration wants to expand the reach of the federal government to take over a large section of our economy? I thought you all were against more power for the federal government under George Bush. Why all of a sudden do you believe the Bush administration and Secretary Paulson when they insist that the only way to save the economy is through a federal takeover? If this bill passes in its current form, then Democrats will share the blame with our President when it fails to achieve its objectives. Hope you all are ok with that. Looks like a no-win to me.

There are a few economists who are opposed to this bailout, and I would take their opinions over those of some of the know-nothings in Congress.

Here’s part of what one of them, Jeffrey Miron (day job- Harvard), had to say:

So what should the government do? Eliminate those policies that generated the current mess. This means, at a general level, abandoning the goal of home ownership independent of ability to pay. This means, in particular, getting rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with policies like the Community Reinvestment Act that pressure banks into subprime lending.

The right view of the financial mess is that an enormous fraction of subprime lending should never have occurred in the first place. Someone has to pay for that. That someone should not be, and does not need to be, the U.S. taxpayer.

Read the whole thing.

Posted on September 29, 2008 Conservatives, Democrats, George W. Bush, Republicans

more reservations

There’s now a possibility that our Congress may pass a slightly modified version of Bush’s socialist bailout. I guess we should be grateful that the House Republicans were allowed some input in the current draft, because it could be much worse than it is. However, it’s not clear that the House Republicans got enough of what they wanted in this bill. Mike Pence is still opposed to it, which prompts serious doubt in my mind that this is the best compromise we can come up with to “save” the economy. Minority Leader Boehner calls this plan a “crap sandwich” but still plans to vote for it. What awesome leadership by our minority leader. Really inspires confidence in the folks we put in charge of the Washington Republicans.

Freedom Works has also weighed in with their opposition to the current bailout legislation (h/t: Michelle Malkin). Here’s what they had to say:

Ten Reasons to Oppose the Wall Street Bailout

1. NO REFORM: The plan attempts to mask, rather than reform, imbalances in credit markets and in U.S. economic public policy. The plan props up reckless and failed banks by buying troubled assets instead of focusing on real reforms that go after government sponsored culprits Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and sustainable policies that will increase the availability of private capital and expanded economic growth.

2. TREASURY POWER GRAB: The plan raises Constitutional concerns by dramatically expanding the power of the current and future Treasury Secretaries, giving the government agency power to directly purchase assets from for-profit financial and non-financial firms.

3. STUNNING PRICE TAG: The $700 billion bailout figure is as much money as the combined annual budgets of the Departments of Defense, Education and Health and Human Services. It amounts to $2,300 for every man, woman, and child in America.

4. INCREASES NATIONAL DEBT: Instead of cutting spending elsewhere, Congress will borrow all $700 billion on global capital markets, and the bill raises the national debt ceiling to a staggering $11.3 trillion.

5. GLOBAL BAILOUT: The plan includes taxpayer purchases of distressed assets from foreign banks.

6. HURTS RESPONSIBLE AMERICAN BANKS: The plan punishes responsible U.S. banks by keeping reckless, insolvent investment banks in business. As BB&T CEO John Allison wrote in a letter to Congress on Sept. 23rd, .this is primarily a bailout of poorly run financial institutions. Corrections are not all bad. The market correction process eliminates irrational competitors.

7. FLAWED PROCESS: Members of Congress and the public will have less than 24 hours and no hearings to discuss and understand the impact of this sweeping plan. This rush to pass a wildly unpopular plan without benefit of significant public debate and input will also undermine its legitimacy and effectiveness.

8. BY WALL STREET, FOR WALL STREET: Treasury Secretary Paulson, the architect of the plan, was formerly the head of Goldman Sachs, one of the firms responsible for the mess and a direct beneficiary of the bailout. Further, the advisers managing the bailout auctions and assets will be Wall Street firms and will likely receive billions of tax dollars in fees.

9. OTHER OPTIONS NOT EXHAUSTED: The idea that taxpayers will make money on the bailout is not credible. There are ready buyers for these troubled assets Merrill Lynch sold its entire portfolio of mortgage backed securities in July provided the price is low enough. If a profit was possible, private speculators would readily buy these troubled assets.

10. MORALLY OFFENSIVE: The plan violates basic principles of American capitalism and honest governance by creating a system of private profits, socialized losses that transfers money from taxpayers directly to Wall Street investment banks. Free market capitalism only functions if individuals and firms are held accountable and are allowed to both succeed and profit, and also to sustain losses and even fail.

I echo these sentiments. This current bailout bill (pdf here) isn’t good enough. Go back to the drawing board and fix some of these flaws before the vote if we absolutely must have a government intervention of this type. I’m not convinced that we need something this massive. We can do better than this, and we must. Like the Freedom Works quote says, “Free market capitalism only functions if individuals and firms are held accountable and are allowed to both succeed and profit, and also to sustain losses and fail.” The solutions we are seeing from this Congress don’t solve the problem and could add trillions to the national debt. There’s nothing fiscally conservative about that.

If we don’t come up with a more responsible solution to our economic problems, then President Bush becomes the new FDR. Well-intentioned socialism is still socialism. In the beginning, our president seemed to be supportive of free markets and capitalism, as well as those popular tax cuts, but we didn’t elect him because we thought he had a strong fiscally conservative record. It was because of national security and judges. That doesn’t keep me from being disappointed that he feels he needs to support something like this. While I realize that many of the root causes of this current crisis lie with our friends on the other side of the aisle, a large chunk of the blame for the current mismanagement of it should be with Paulson and the Bush administration.

I’m not sure if there is anything we can do to stop the worst from happening if Minority Leader Boehner has already caved and is trying to convince others to go along with the Democrats on this bailout plan. I just hope that when this process is over, there will have been enough Republicans with the guts to say — if this is what we must do, let’s get this right before voting on it.

2 Comments Posted on September 26, 2008 '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

draw

That’s what I thought about the McCain-Obama debate. McCain had a few good lines, but Obama did not do any obvious damage to himself when discussing foreign policy — at least not that any casual observer would notice. I don’t think either of them changed any minds tonight. I missed the part where they discussed the economy, but it probably wouldn’t have changed my opinion of this debate. McCain needed to knock out Obama, and he did not. This raises the stakes for the next two debates for John McCain, and this is a debate I believe McCain should have won because it’s an area of strength for him.

Minor point — there’s not much difference between preconditions and preparations, and Barack Obama’s explanation of this is just silly. But Barack did what he needed to do in this debate. Even though I absolutely disagree with about 95% of what Barack wants to do on foreign policy and the economy, I realize that the average American does not follow politics as closely as the bloggers and other assorted political junkies. So it’s possible that someone more detached from this than I am could see a clear winner between McCain and Obama. I didn’t.

Not surprisingly for those on the opposite side of the political debate — McCain is winning the FNC text poll 82 to 16. It was a lot closer than that.

Posted on September 23, 2008 '08 Election, Republicans

just say no

Senator DeMint gives the Paulson bailout plan a very emphatic thumbs down.

From his Senate website:

After reviewing the Administration’s proposed bailout plan, I believe it is completely unacceptable. This plan does nothing to address the misguided government policies that created this mess and it could make matters much worse by socializing an entire sector of the U.S. economy. This plan fails to oversee or regulate the government failures that led to this crisis. Instead it greatly increases the role for Secretary Paulson whose market predictions have been consistently wrong in the last year, and provides corporate welfare for investment firms on Wall Street that don’t want to disclose their assets and sell them to private investors for market rates. Most Americans are paying their bills on time and investing responsibly and should not be forced to pay for the reckless actions of some on Wall Street, especially when no one can guarantee this will solve our current problems.

This plan will not only cause our nation to fall off the debt cliff, it could send the value of the dollar into a free-fall as investors around the world question our ability to repay our debts. It’s also very likely that this plan will extend the cycle of bailouts, encouraging other companies to behave in reckless ways that create the need for even more bailouts, triggering an endless run on our treasury. This plan may make things look better for Wall Street in the next couple months, but the long-term consequences to our economy could be disastrous.

There are much better ways of dealing with this problem than forcing American taxpayers to pay for every asset some investor doesn’t want anymore. We should start by reforming government policies and programs that created this mess, including the Federal Reserve’s easy money policy, the congressional charters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Community Reinvestment Act. Then Congress should pass a number of permanent and proven pro-growth reforms to encourage capital formation and boost asset values. We need to make permanent reductions in the corporate tax and the capital gains tax rates. We have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world, which encourages companies to take jobs and investment overseas.

It’s a sad fact, but Americans can no longer trust the economic information they are getting from this Administration. The Administration said the bailout of Bear Stearns would stop the bleeding and solve the problem, but they were wrong. They said $150 billion in new government spending using rebate checks would solve the problem, but they were wrong again. They said new authority to bailout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would solve the problem without being used, but they were wrong again. Now they want us to trust them to spend nearly a trillion dollars on more government bailouts. It’s completely irresponsible and I cannot support it.

My Senator has the right idea here. This $700 billion bailout doesn’t provide any accountability or address any of the problems that got our economy where it is today. It will, as others have said, give Secretary Paulson a virtual blank check without any promise of results. It is irresponsible, and the Bush administration should go back to the drawing board, knowing that many Republicans will not support this. If John McCain has any maverick tendencies left after he finishes ripping greedy people and Wall Street fat cats –neither of which have primary responsibility for the mortgage mess we find ourselves in– he should seriously consider showing up and voting against this bailout. Republicans will follow McCain in opposing this, but he needs to take the lead in fighting for the taxpayers.

Posted on September 12, 2008 '08 Election, Conservatives, Democrats, Liberals

conservatives and the mccain/palin ticket

There are two main issues that Christian conservatives consider important enough to threaten withholding votes from any politician who doesn’t perfectly toe the line — abortion and same-sex marriage. When evangelicals and others hold the line on principle and refuse to endorse a candidate who doesn’t agree with them on these issues, they are called single-issue voters and derided for standing on those principles. These issues are important to me as well, but sometimes we don’t think about the consequences of withholding support from perfectly good and qualified candidates who might be a better bet to win an election. Every one of our divided conservative groups picked a different horse, and McCain got his independents and moderates — at least in the primary. That’s how we ended up with a candidate in McCain that we are still unhappy with, despite the Palin bounce.

I agree with those who say that we should stop trying to make the experience argument for Sarah Palin, even though it doesn’t seem to bother the Obama sheep that their man hasn’t closed the deal with the American people in that category. Her appeal is a broad appeal that has very little to do with her knowledge of foreign policy or her deep conversations with world leaders. It’s all about her personal story — moose hunting, fishing, the NRA membership, her Down’s Syndrome son. She’s a very sympathetic figure, and she is a happy warrior, zinging Obama and the Democrats with a smile on her face. (She does need some more variations in her scripted lines, but other than that, I have no complaints.)

While she has requested and received some earmarks, it is evident that she has made some significant changes in the way Alaska does business. She deserves credit for that. With an sky-high approval rating in Alaska, she must have done something right in her short tenure there. I still think that Palin can learn what she does not know, but unless the Democrats know something we don’t know about McCain’s mortality– McCain will be President on day one, not his VP. Why are the Democrats even worried about Palin’s readiness anyway? All they have to do is make sure Barack overcomes his struggles and wins the election. Not that difficult, right? 🙂

Then the 80% wrong Joe Biden can run his foreign policy. Yikes. This can’t be what the Democrats really want.

4 Comments Posted on September 10, 2008 '08 Election, Conservatives, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

some advice for the mccain campaign

Stop treating Sarah as a victim. Stop being so politically correct. Let this “pig” remark die a natural death. Guess it’s too late for that now.

Take every opportunity to compare Governor Palin’s fiscal record with that of Senator Biden. She has the advantage there. There may be some doubt as far as when she started to oppose the bridge to nowhere, but she did oppose it. Both Barack and Joe supported it from the beginning.

More later….

1 Comment Posted on September 7, 2008 '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

worthy of note

I was going to give my in depth analysis of Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech Wednesday night, but wouldn’t you all rather read what Michael Barone had to say about it? She had a very strong debut, but she does have more work to do. The McCain campaign is doing a smart thing by keeping her away from the Sunday shows for now, but eventually she’s going to have to do some interviews and finish off Joe Biden to show that she can handle herself without a script. I feel more confident about this than I did before her speech on Wednesday, and I am cautiously optimistic that she can survive whatever the media decides to throw at her. The McCain campaign should be wary of casting Palin as a victim, because it’s quite clear that she can take the punches.

About McCain’s acceptance speech — he got through it ok, no thanks to the Code Pink morons who interrupted him at the beginning. Obama will always have the edge in speechmaking ability, but John McCain’s life story is compelling, and McCain told that story as well as he could. The McCain campaign does need to be more judicious with the use of McCain’s military service and former POW status in speeches and rallies, because he runs the risk of trivializing that service. Take John Kerry for example — the running gag is that, by the way, did you know he served in Vietnam? McCain’s military service is a wonderful example of service to our country above and beyond the call of duty. I respect it, but he can’t win an election without talking about kitchen table issues in addition to his bio.

Posted on September 4, 2008 '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

rnc: random thoughts from red meat day

Before I get to Governor Palin’s wonderful speech, there are several other things that struck me as the RNC proceeds forward to the acceptance speech by McCain tonight. The first is that there aren’t many conservative women in the GOP pipeline contesting Senate races or any higher state offices. What does it say about this party that the “qualified” women suggested for McCain’s VP pick aren’t conservatives? Olympia Snowe, Elizabeth Dole, and Kay Hutchison, while they may be conservative enough for some people, don’t bring much to the table for McCain, and it wouldn’t bring in those independent and moderates, or even the Hillary voters. They would have done even less for the social conservative base than any other candidate on McCain’s shortlist.

There is more work that needs to be done on the grassroots level to recruit more women and minorities. While it’s a myth that the Republican party doesn’t have anything to offer those two groups and working people, we have continued to allow the media to push this narrative — and we don’t have much ammo to use even if we fought back against it. This needs to change. We do have ideas that work for these groups — at least conservatives do — but the failures of current Congressional Republicans have damaged the Republican brand, and it’s hard for the American people to trust us to deal with everyday problems.

This is why Mitt Romney’s message fell flat last night. Republicans are part of the problem in Washington. Many of them have surrendered to Democratic rule, and they have allowed too many earmarks to go through. They compromised on pieces of bad legislation with the Democrats. It fires up Republican crowds to talk about all those bad “liberals”, but what resonance would it have with the rest of the American voters? Mitt isn’t comfortable in the role of the attack dog. The speech he gave last night was fiery, and full of stuff conservatives like to hear, but I thought that his delivery was slightly over-the-top. Just a minor style point in an otherwise effective speech.

Continue reading →

10 Comments Posted on September 3, 2008 '08 Election, Conservatives, Democrats, George W. Bush, Liberals, Republicans

rnc: the end and the beginning

There were three major storylines at the RNC today that had nothing to do with Sarah Palin. The first was the ceremonial end of the Bush era. The second was Fred’s red meat speech and his stirring account of McCain’s military service. The third — Joe Lieberman incinerating those bridges between himself and the Democrats once and for all with his direct attacks on Barack Obama.

The Republicans need to do more to emphasize the differences between Bush and McCain, but they need to do this without completely abandoning Dubya. There are those in the party who still love the guy, and we need all the votes we can get to defeat Barack Obama. That’s why the President had to speak at the RNC, no matter how brief the speech would have to be. I’m not sure that the President did much to advance McCain’s candidacy, but it was nice to give him one last hurrah in front of an appreciative crowd. We also saw a video tribute to Bush Sr. It was fitting that they gave all the Bushes their due at the last convention they will have with a Bush in the White House. (Unless Jeb surprises us all someday…)

Fred Thompson’s speeches will never approach the eloquence of Senator Obama’s, but he was on fire tonight.

Here’s some of what he said about McCain:

Now, being a POW certainly doesn’t qualify anyone to be President. But it does reveal character. This is the kind of character that civilizations from the beginning of history have sought in their leaders. Strength. Courage. Humility. Wisdom. Duty. Honor. It’s pretty clear there are two questions we will never have to ask ourselves, ‘Who is this man?’ and ‘Can we trust this man with the Presidency?’ He has been to Iraq eight times since 2003. He went seeking truth, not publicity. When he travels abroad, he prefers quietly speaking to the troops amidst the heat and hardship of their daily lives. And the same character that marked John McCain’s military career has also marked his political career. This man, John McCain is not intimidated by what the polls say or by what is politically safe or popular. At a point when the war in Iraq was going badly and the public lost confidence, John stood up and called for more troops. And now we are winning. Ronald Reagan was John McCain’s hero. And President Reagan admired John tremendously. But when the President proposed putting U.S. troops in Beirut, John McCain, a freshman Congressman, stood up and cast a vote against his hero because he thought the deployment was a mistake. My friends … that is character you can believe in.

Zing. Character matters, at least it does for Republicans. That’s the main question we have been asking about Barack Obama from the beginning — who is this guy and can we trust him with the Presidency? Love or hate John McCain — you know where he stands.