Posted on 09/24/2005 1:34:49 PM PDT by RWR8189
SMALL GOVERNMENT CONSERVATIVES HAVE REVOLTED against President Bush and the Republican leadership of the Senate and the House. Their goal, with hurricane recovery costs soaring, is what it's always been: to hold down spending and restrain the growth of government. It is an impossible dream or close to impossible. The small government brigade is a distinct minority in Congress. Their strength is outside Congress. They reflect the anxiety of the Republican party's base, conservatives and moderates both, over the uncontrolled spending and massive expansion of government following hurricane Katrina. "The base is killing us," a Republican senator says.
There's another source of strength for small government conservatives. One congressional Republican says an old adage of Newt Gingrich is applicable: Never assume that anybody is organized or there's a grand plan that's in effect. The president is concentrated on emergency relief and recovery in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Congress is in disarray. But small government conservatives do have a plan--actually two plans--for paying for a portion of the hurricane costs by offsetting spending cuts.
In the House, the conservative Republican Study Committee proposed "budget options" that would cut spending by as much as $102 billion in one year. The RSC scheme would delay the start of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, scheduled for January 1, for at least one year. Led by Republican representative Mike Pence of Indiana, RSC leaders met last week with Josh Bolten, the White House budget director, and with House Republican leaders, who rejected their plan as politically unrealistic, which it is.
In the Senate, six Republicans offered a series of "options to save spending by reducing non-defense spending growth." By merely freezing discretionary spending--that means everything but entitlements--for a single year, $47.9 billion would be saved. Limiting the freeze to non-defense, non-homeland security spending would still save $36.2 billion, according to Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire. "If Congress simply put in place mechanisms to control the growth of discretionary spending at or near inflation, the two-year cost savings is well in excess of $20 billion," Sununu says. Slowing the growth of spending in such ways is more realistic.
The resentment felt by the small government conservatives antedates Katrina and the current argument over spending on relief and recovery. They have a philosophical difference with the president and with their own leaders in Congress. They favor sharply limited government and minimal spending. Bush and his congressional allies prefer a more expansive role for government and worry less about increased spending. Bush has been called a big government conservative (by me), but that label is inapt because it implies he's a liberal. He's not, but neither is he a small government conservative.
A series of expensive measures championed by Bush and passed by Congress--the farm, highway, and energy bills, for instance--has caused the anger of small government conservatives to simmer. In the House, 25 Republicans voted against the Medicare drug benefit in 2003, nearly prompting its defeat and alienating the White House and party leaders in Congress. Nonetheless, most of the 25 remain proud of their "no" vote. Sununu voted against the Medicare, energy, highway, and farm bills. Yet he's been skillful in maintaining his ties to the White House and Senate leaders.
The RSC's Pence hasn't been. Indeed, he is loathed by Bush aides and House Republican leaders. They blame him for going to the press with proposed spending cuts before coming to them, cuts they insist can't get more than a few dozen votes. They claim he has set the bar so high for cuts that anything short of $100 billion, which Congress might actually approve, will appear puny. Perhaps, but the real effect of the RSC's hype of spending restraint is that serious cuts (or "offsets") are now far more likely.
Bush bears less blame for out-of-control spending than Congress itself. True, he's never vetoed a spending bill. But he cajoled Congress into slashing the level of highway spending. And his budgets, aside from defense outlays, have called for gradual decreases in discretionary spending. His 2006 budget sought to hold all non-entitlement spending, including for defense and homeland security, to less than the rate of inflation. That, however, was pre-Katrina and pre-Rita.
The record of the congressional Republican leadership on curbing spending is abysmal. In response to the RSC, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay claimed all the fat in the federal budget had already been scraped away. That inflamed small government conservatives and even moderates, and DeLay was forced to retract his statement. When Bolten addressed Senate Republicans last week, he didn't apologize for Bush's insistence on financing the recovery of the Gulf Coast with billions of federal dollars. He pointed out that Republicans hadn't adopted most of the cuts outlined by the White House in the 2006 budget. If Congress wants to cut more now, he told the senators, go to it.
Getting Republican leaders, much less the rest of Congress, to agree to spending cuts is an enormous task. Even some small government conservatives want to protect the "earmarks" for transportation projects in their districts. Nor is the White House ready to send a list of recommended cuts to Congress. Bush is still distracted by the immediate needs of the recovery. As usual, Democrats are no help. Their impulse is to raise taxes, just as it was before the hurricanes. Bush has wisely ruled out tax hikes.
Though few in number, the small government conservatives are a problem for Bush. His power as president is based partly on his ability to marshal huge Republican majorities in Congress along with a handful of Democratic renegades. If the RSC types--30 or more of them in the House and a half-dozen in the Senate--reject his hurricane recovery legislation, the Bush majority may vanish. White House aides profess not to be worried about the revolt of small government conservatives. But it's a bigger threat than they imagine.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
Thanks for this post. Barnes is on to something.
Both the Pence option and FReezing domestic spending option work for me.
Now, all we have to do is convince "our" Representatives and Senators that less government spending is a good thing!
I.e., they will get re-elected if they spend less and un-elected if they keep on spending like there is no tomorrow!
Mike Pence Ping!!!!!
typical gop....
How about rescinding of the forgiving of foreign debt and all foreign spending while frezing domestic spending? Take care of our own first for a change.
Put a stake thru its heart or it will rise like wife of a bad governor form a small unimportant state whether it be ME or AR
"The RSC's Pence hasn't been. Indeed, he is loathed by Bush aides and House Republican leaders. They blame him for going to the press with proposed spending cuts before coming to them, cuts they insist can't get more than a few dozen votes. They claim he has set the bar so high for cuts that anything short of $100 billion, which Congress might actually approve, will appear puny. Perhaps, but the real effect of the RSC's hype of spending restraint is that serious cuts (or "offsets") are now far more likely."
what is it with the utter hostility this administration has for true conservatives? blame this, blame that....its his fault for not going to them first, he set the bar too high, wahhh wahh wahh.
not to mention the utter contempt that the WH seems to have or had at one time for tancredo, they told him he wasnt welcome there. and i could have sworn i read a story where they tried to get someone to run against him in his district (a rino of course).
not only that, but calling the minutemen "vigilantes", telling those who criticize the possibility of choosing gonzales to pipe down, etc.
this is a disturbing trend-- it really appears that conservatism is isolated and despised in washington. i would love to see pence as president but i just dont think he can swim against this tide of rinos in the GOP.
like i have said before-- the democrats are socialists and the republicans have become the democrats. if our founding fathers were to be reincarnated and formed a political party, the republicans would look socialist compared to them. thats how far our political system has been pulled to the left.
That's an issue Fred also doesn't care about, as he said on FNC's Special Report about 3 weeks ago.
The Revolution grows.
2006 elections are just around the corner.
Conservatives power is based on having a Republican majority in Congress. Step lightly, SGRs . . .
Play it wrong and you'll be watching the game played from the bleachers. With no respect and with no influence. We'll all lose.
Does anyone here think a Dem. govt. would do any better if in control of spending? Think about it.
Does this mean Compassionate Conservatism is dead
One can only hope!
They seem to forget that "IT IS NOT THEIR MONEY".
But after spending our money they think mighty well of themselves.
While I loathe saying it, you would probably get a logjam which would mean less spending.
Republicans might not want to work and would probably oppose more bills.
Kind of similiar to what happened in the 90s.
That said, considering the consequences of having a dem led government, I'll take the lesser of 2 evils for now.
After Katrina? It's been going on since the first day GWB took office.
That used to be an oxymoron.. an aberration..
Not anymore.. The phrase, "JUST wait until "we" get a republican congress and a republican president".. turns out be a TRAP.. a Snare, a Trojan Horse..
Could it be that MOST republicans are RINOs.?... since we elect so many of them.. Amazing since there ARE NO elected, "Small government Democrats".. ZERO, None..
When Pence and the rest of the Republicans find the courage to cut the NPR subsidy and that of the NEA, then I might think they have the fortitude to do something. Right now, they're focusing on making federal employees pay for parking--something Jimmy Carter tried.
Thanks for the ping.
That's my rep. < /thumbs up>
Mike Pence: Protecting Liberty
More of these sorts of Republicans can be generated by these folk:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/club_for_growth.htm
Sadly the GOP is not listening although they say they want to hear from us. WE WANT CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATES and will fund them individually or with those who support conservatives, i.e. Club For Growth.
Republican pols are NOT listening. Every time I send a note to Judd Greg, John Sununu, Charlie Bass, etc. I get a canned letter in response sent by some aid. It is getting to be very discouraging.
President Bush needs to pay some attention to his base and quit playing kissy-face with the Clintons.
marking
You are very lucky.
Well, there it is. That "darn old base, getting in the way of our pork barrel spending". As another FReeper once said, "Who do I vote for now that Republicans are socialists and democrats are communists?"
P I N G ;)!
"our" Representative in this case (For ME) is Pence!!
That's what they said about Reagan too, and look what happend The Lord blessed our nation with 8 wonderful years in the modern period when things seem to be going to h**l. It's possilbe to elect MP to POTUS we just have to be willing to do what God has called us to, and to serve to help get him elected!
BS....If there is one area you could sell to a large majority of voters it is spending cuts. There are even a large number of Democrats who would go along.
Best news i've heard all day
If Clinton can sell the idea of the era of big government is over, why can't the GOP, afterall it should be their message. This is crazy. Newt gave us the House and eventually the Senate because of fiscal conservatism.
There is no such thing as a small government conservative. Imagine if Reagan were alive and well and someone asked him if he were a small government conservative. There are conservatives who by definition and history are opposed to centralized government and bureaucratic sprawl. They are for fiscal restraint. They are for securing our borders. They are for educational choice and local control of schools. They support the right to life. Anyone professing to be conservative and uncommitted to the above, is either a weak willed people pleasing politican or a some kind of sick sychophant of the political elite.
I don't know him very well, but if his suggestion is representative of his philosophy of government, he is one of the good guys!
That too.
Actually, most of the past 60 years of US foreign aid money has stashed in Swiss banks by the tin pot dictators we gave it to. We probably could get it back, if we really wanted to.
Wise words.
With libs, it's all about being in power.
33%!
If that's the lesser of two evils, I'd hate to see the greater!
Dems tax and spend, but Repubs borrow and spend.
But don't worry, I'm sure China, Japan et al will be very lenient creditors when the bill comes due...
It is the "entitlements" that should be slashed by the equal of Katirna's cost.
The BIG money is in the piggish "entitlement" programs and Pence, or any other person, who fails to demand entitlements be cut is a Marxist.
That puts nearly all Republicans (and, of course all RATs), in that Marxist category. "Entitlements" = Marxism, and any Republican with no guts to make that clear does not deserve to be in office.
Notice how Bush and most Republicans never talk about "limited government". They know that will sound ludicrous.
We have two flavors of centralized statism in the USA today--the RAT variety who proudly slams that in your face, and the Republican variety, who are in-the-closet Marxists.
2 things.
1) I would hate to see the greater evil, but I did note that the dems claims about the deficit weren't that we spent to much, but that taxes were to low, i.e. raise taxes and spend more.
2) Bush has now broken LBJs record on increase in spending, and some other spending records.
Your 33% increase may also be wrong, and possibly lower then the actual amount as of now, though using a couple of accounting gimmicks, there is an attempt being made to keep it competitive with the LBJ and FDR numbers.....which is probably has exceeded already.
Could it be Bush knows we are on our last leg just like
a credit card spender that plans on declaring bankruptcy?
With a seven or eight trillion dollar debt, adding a few
more trillion won't make much difference. The whole thing
is sick and unconstitutional!
Fred is my favorite on Britt's show.
Smart guy.
If only the people would elect 'citizens' to congress, i.e. accomplished people who would work in congress for a short time who have been successful in their lives. In doing so, the electorate would be sending to D.C. true representatives who would do what's best for the country and not what's best for themselves.
Congress is the main culprit. The President only for his lack of vetos.
I know the feeling.. Man,, your in for an education when you finally find out "conservative" means "More of the same"... because thats what conservative means..
RINO is a four letter word and RINOS ARE conservative.. as America moves left'er.. Big government republicans, LIKE BUSH..
Clearly, RINOs are considered conservative by the MSM, because the left is getting more far out. And, because the MSM will never believe that the left is moving left"er", then they must explain things by seeing RINOs as "conservative".
However, I consider my conservatism as an absolute; not as relative to any other's beliefs.
I misquoted something in myy haste to add 2 cents
I had been thinking of a recent report from the heritage foundation:
"President Bush has pledged to do whatever it takes to rebuild the lives and communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina. This pledge comes with a price tag. To deliver this kind of aid, Congress and the President must set priorities and make sacrifices and trade-offs to pay for it. Offsetting the cost of rebuilding is all the more important because the rebuilding effort follows a 33 percent expansion of the federal government since 2001..."
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm844.cfm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.