| | Fred,
It would be wonderful to have the budget of the Eisenhower or JFK years!
I fault them (and everyone of that era) for not seeing the dangers of Progressivism and seriously working to stamp it out. I guess at that point in time we felt that with FDR and Woodrow Wilson in the past, having survived the Depression and won WWII, we were somewhat invincible.
The danger that needed to be addressed was in the universities. The GOP had it's conservative wing back them, and they focused on an anti-communist program, but they weren't that effective or sharply on target. The communist threat was real and it was part of the cold war. And the anti-communists's focus was mostly on fighting "Godless Communism" and the meantime the Progressive threat had been in place since the Fabian Socialists came across the Pond from England in the late 1800's and they were just cruising on, turning out liberal journalists, and new generations of Progressive intellectuals and professors - all under the radar.
You wrote: "I am totally convinced that this concept of supporting the GOP was a massive going nowhere folly, sleeping with pigs." I agree. With hindsight, the only way to work with the GOP would have been to attack every part of it that wasn't out and out constitutional conservative, fiscally conservative and explicitly pro-Capitalism. The rest of the GOP should have been treated as a political danger.
[Side note: The 2016 GOP primary might be interesting. I won't be surprised to see candidates like Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. I can't work up any enthusiasm for the GOP as such, but debates with those candidates would be worth watching.]
I feel like weeping when I think of how the economies could be turned around, almost overnight, with astounding results:
1.) Eliminate all taxes on businesses, PERIOD. There would be a massive flood of money into this country from around the world. We would become the healthiest and most competitive economic force the world has ever seen.
2.) Repeal the constitutional amendment for the Income Tax, and institute a national sales tax for an amount that is about equal to what the federal government is currently spending LESS what we are borrowing.
3.) Pass a constitutional amendment that caps federal spending at current levels (LESS borrowing) and reduces that percentage by 2 percent per year till it hits 10%.
4.) Prohibit borrowing unless there is a declared temporary emergency where 3/4 of the members of the House vote to certify such an emergency every 6 months as needed - and there must be declared state of war and the borrowing can only be used to fund the war.
5.) Prohibit any increases in the dollars in circulation beyond the percent increase in population.
Then let congress fight with each other for how they spend what they are budgeted - or more realistically, what massive cuts they need to make to eliminate all of the spending that requires borrowing 40 some cents of each dollar spent.
There is at least a small sliver of a possibility that something like that could happen - but NOT in Washington. It would have to happen as a ground swell of support coming from the state governments in the red states that are fiscally conservative in their own rights, and pissed at the election and hate what is going on in Washington. They can begin an escalating process of state nullification of Washington's policies. They could target one thing at a time... like ObamaCare, or some spending program, and pass a state law that in effect says, "That's not constitutional and we are exempting our state from it." They would be flat out refusing to follow some federal law, and giving an appearance of legally doing so by passing their own law. They would have to pick carefully to ensure strong support, and in case it is forced into the Supreme Court, they'd have a good shot at winning. One risk that will come to pass, is the next Supreme Court appointment where a moderate or a conservative justice is replaced with a Progressive. The states would have to join with other states and let the levels of support grow, and the successes appear till they could push even harder and in more areas. Eventually, the idea would be to generate the public awareness and support of what emotionally would be anti-congress, anti-Washington constitutional amendments that take away Washington's ability to borrow, or to spend beyond some cap level.
I think that our nation is ready to have the fight over entitlements and big government versus small government and liberty, but I think the deck is stacked way to much to ever win as long as the fight is in Washington. That is expecting Washington to fix itself - Yeah, like that's going to happen!!!! That is my reason for wanting the fight to occur on a different battlefield.
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