This is just a repost of my earlier 'Fish On' theory for someone I have invited over. You can read on if you like.
I believe that GWB is more like Reagan than most realize or give him credit for.
1. He is vehemently hated by the left. So was Reagan.
2. He knew that cutting taxes was the only way to make America function well. So did Reagan.
3. They both had large adversaries. Reagan had the USSR. Bush has the socialist Democrat Party.
4. He will get rid of the Dems the same way Reagan got rid of the Soviets. He will spend them to death.
I am just about tired of hearing folks on the right whine about how �Social� Bush is with our money.
Ronald Reagan was one of the greatest Presidents America has ever seen. Why, because he saw the threat to America posed by the USSR and grabbed it by the horns and kicked it in the nuts.
Reagan recognized what made America great, the almighty dollar. Money makes the world go around folks (well, that and momentum). And he harnessed the power of the dollar to smother the Soviets.
Yes, they were stumbling all over themselves under their own weight by the time he got into office. They were broke, bedraggled and busted but not out. And he was not going to let them get up off the mat to get a second swing at America.
Reagan knew he could use America�s economic strength to take the arms race to a whole new level and that the USSR would try to follow us. And when they did, they would have to begin to shed their excess baggage. The eastern bloc of Europe was their last stronghold and when the Berlin Wall fell, we had them because without those satellite countries, the USSR had even less of a base of people (read: free labor) to work with.
George W Bush is doing the same thing with the Democrats.
They start barking about increases for Medicare/Medicaid,
He says �OK, How much?�,
They say �$10 Billion�,
He says �How about 12�.
The Dems then only have one option. Since they aren�t allowed to agree with him, they can only say that it should have been bigger. But everyone in their right mind in middle class America knows we couldn�t even afford the increase in the first place. So they ask �Where would this money come from?�. And the Dems can only say �More Taxes� which is a horrible thing to have to run an election on. Look at Mondale.
Or, the Dems say that we have to take money out of the defense budget. And again, no one in their right mind in middle class America wants to do that when you have millions of religious zealots out there who want to either convert of kill Americans.
So what happens, the Dems get stuck with a rising star like Howard Dean who starts to shoot his mouth off over and over all the while looking like the spokesman for the Democrat Party. This turns most of middle class America away from the party and the only votes that the Dems will receive are from toe-tag Democrats, those folks who voted for Nader last time around, and anyone else who hates the image created by the Dems of GWB enough to get off their ass and get to a voting booth. Not exactly a large group of people.
You also have a large number of older Dem Senators who are starting to retire with no clear Dem replacement. 2004 could be a very good year for the Republicans, as long as they don�t step on their balls like they have a tendency to do.
We need not worry about Bush�s social spending just yet. The debt is not yet in line to be too big for us to step out of. Remember the howling that went on during Reagan�s era? They actually put up an electronic billboard in Times Square that was counting the debt and then dividing up how much each person who looked at it was responsible for. What a freak show. And notice how it started being ignored after the swearing in of a Democrat?
If you look closely you will see medium sized numbers of libertarians leaving their party and becoming Republicans. These folks are young and are full of ideas of what the government should (defense) and shouldn�t be (education, transportation, medicine, retirement, etc.) be involved in. Within 10 years after minimizing of the Democrat Party, we will start shedding social programs. And lower taxes will follow.
What a wonderful life.
Posted by AnalogKid at August 21, 2003 01:51 PM | TrackBack