What the Moderate Republican Stands For

Republicans came to power as the party of big ideas, and without returning to that model they could be looking at a long winter. Additionally, those big ideas need to focus on Middle America. Three issues that could work are conservation, reform and localism.

Conservation- a return to the Teddy Roosevelt model of conservation. One doesn’t necessarily have to buy into global warming to appreciate the need to protect the natural resources we have.

Reform- the federal government is bigger than ever, and won’t be getting any smaller over the next four years. Republicans need to fashion themselves as national reformers. Much of Middle America wants the government as safety net, but bloated bureaucracies breed corruption that needs to be dealt with.

Localism- this is the lynchpin that brings it all together. If we bought our food locally, shopped locally, governed locally, many of the issue we now have to deal with would go away, or at the least become manageable.

Below is a collection of writers who speak about the things that matter. Some are Right, some Left and some Center, but all intelligent and rational voices.

The American Conservative » Rod Dreher

Via Meadia

Front Porch Republic

David Brooks

The Soap Box

A New Great Depression? Maybe Not.

The Obama administration is fond of comparing our current economic crisis to the Great Depression. "We are in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and a lot of you I think are worried about your jobs, your pensions, your retirement accounts," he said.

Talk such as this was used to sell the nation on the now under performing stimulus package. Obama said the stimulus bill had “saved or created over 150,000 jobs.” However, since the $787 billion spending measure passed, over 1 million jobs have been lost and unemployment has increased to 8.9 percent.

And there’s this from an Associated Press study:
Counties suffering the most from job losses stand to receive the least help from President Barack Obama's plan to spend billions of stimulus dollars on roads and bridges, an Associated Press analysis has found.

Although the intent of the money is to put people back to work, AP's review of more than 5,500 planned transportation projects nationwide reveals that states are planning to spend the stimulus in communities where jobless rates are already lower.

So, we were told that the nation was staring a new Great Depression in the face and we needed to implement the biggest spending plan we had ever seen to combat it; and that plan has yet to show any real results. Well, it turns that Great Depression comparison may have been just a bit hyperbolic.

Six Downturns

The graph is from the Donald Marron's new blog.

Can you imagine what the nonproductive stimulus plan would have cost if we really were entering a new Great Depression?

2 comments:

Beth said...

Well if you don't have a crisis to exploit so that you can thrust your agenda on the American people, then by God you must create one!

Anonymous said...

Obama didn't create this mess. It was your guy, and now we have to fix it!