Posted on 01/26/2013 6:57:00 PM PST by Kaslin
Sen. Ted Cruz says the GOP should focus on opportunity for lower classes
Freshman Senator Ted Cruz challenged the Republican Party to return to championing growth and opportunity for the lower and working classes during a lunchtime address at the National Review Institute Conference Saturday afternoon.
Speaking without a lectern or notes, Cruz moved easily around the stage as he presented his vision for the Republican Party’s future to the audience at the conference.
“The policies of the Obama administration have fundamentally failed the communities struggling to climb the economic ladder,” Cruz said.
Cruz contrasted the Republican vision of opportunity with the Democrat’s social goal: “The message of the left is a message of dependency. It’s a message of control.”
Cruz said that Mitt Romney’s 47 percent comment captured “the narrative of the last election.” Voters thought that Republicans did not care about those in the lower and working classes, Cruz said. But, “Republicans are and should be the party of the 47 percent.”
Cruz encouraged Republicans to analyze bills by seeing how they impact those at the bottom of society, what he called a “Rawlsian lens.” Republicans should not be the party of big business, as big businesses loves big government, he said.
Cruz talked about the impact that four percent growth would have on the country. Four percent growth over 10 years would generate lots of jobs and trillions of dollars of new revenue, Cruz said.
Cruz hailed a new generation of Republican leaders whom he called the “children of Reagan,” including Governors Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and Bob McDonnell.
Cruz did not just look at the long-term future of the Republican Party, however. He also provided some strategic advice for the short-term.
He encouraged conservatives to “stop reading the New York Times and encouraged Republicans to oppose the president’s agenda. He said that Congress should use “leverage points to make real progress on the fiscal and economic crisis.”
Cruz fielded questions from the audience at the end of his talk. He lamented the “55 million souls” lost through abortion and said that Ronald Reagan should have won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Cold War.
The list of Republicans whom I like is very short. Very short indeed. But he’s on it.
The GOP shouldn’t be the party of big business?
Huh? When small businesses succeed, as prosperity advocates desire that they do, they might become these scary big businesses! Nothing like a mixed message!
Big Business is not scary. It is not the enemy. But also, it doesn't need either a hand up or a hand-out from the government. The GOP should not be the party of Big Business.
As he is not like Bill Gates who is all over the news spouting his eradicated 2/3 of polio. Excuse me, Gates, but polio as they say was made made in a lab and could be eradicated in one day. Exactly what kind of BS is Bill Gates up to. I thought he wanted people to die.
Champion liberty and justice - leave social justice and wealth distribution on the ash heap of history. You want fewer poor, tax them. Taxing an activity always reduces it. Make the poor plight more miserable so that folks will desire to avoid it. Stop subsidizing bad character. Make it easier to start and do business, get rid of no-fault divorce, food stamps, welfare, subsidized housing, minimum wage, the EEOC so if some kid wants a job with a bone in nose,pierced tongue and tattoo’s of skulls on his neck the employer can say get lost loser.
GOPe should go slumming, the dude says.
Stop making sense!
It makes sense for the GOP to be the party of prosperity of all sizes, and the party of good morals too. Somehow liberals made “trickle down” into a joke, and that reflects monstrous ignorance because poor people seldom create jobs.
“Sen. Ted Cruz says the GOP should focus on opportunity for lower classes”
Opportunity to work gets trumped by opportunity to free stuff.
I would make the case that small business owners really do want government to get out of the way -- that way there will be fewer obstacles and their small businesses will thrive.
But I suspect that big business owners think the path to greater success is paved with government subsidies or beneficial regulations: they want government involvement -- if its the right kind. I think this is best avoided. That kind of "prosperity" leads to corruption, as we have seen.
Political power and money tend to align. Occupy Wallstreet gets mad at big businesses that get bailouts and corporate welfare, but it doesn’t recognize that this is only possible if government is so big that it can regulate in favor of big businesses in exchange for money.
There is some point to that... class warfare between strata of business. GE doesn’t want any upstarts horning in on its de facto monopolies. Things should be fair to all businesses, large or small.
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