Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 7686

As you all well know, Geogre W Bush won the election based on his moral values. In fact, many republicans in general, win upon the platform of moral values because the people who are most activist (and therefore vote) are the ones facinated by moral values.

However, there seems to be a great disconect between the support of moral values and the implementation of policy that reflects moral values. Take the record of G W when he was in texas. He put judges into the state supreme court that supported abortion. It just doesn't seem right that people vote for something they want and don't get it.

It's not like GW is adverse to changeing policies to reflect his beliefs, in fact he does that all the time. Look at the work he's performed on the tax code! Look at the work he's about to perform upon social security! He's got a mandate baby!... Except economic policy wasn't the set of issues he was given his mandate on. It just doesn't seem right that people vote for something they don't want and do get it.

So when is Bush going to divide the country based on his real mandate, I ask you, because he only has a limited amount of "capital" to spend and it seems he's going to use it all up on economic policy, which he doesn't have a good track record on when it comes to fixing.

And when he comes back with a "We'll I tried, but the economy just got so crazy I couldn't get around to the abortion issue." look on his face what are you going to do? Vote for him again?
So, you social conservatives that are out there, I demand that you stand up for your rights! Tell your president to get his priorities straight, because he's trying to rework the tax code at a time when a predictable revenue stream is of most importance (fighting terrorism cost money), when the proper equipment to fight terror is awol and the nation building required in Iraq is in shambles (and the parts that ain't belong to Haliburton), Rumsfeld is going into some alzheimer's dementia while trying to lead the troops, and abortions are still a going on.

What are you going to do? Just take it? Fight for the soul of your party! The soul of your nation! Stop abortion once and for all! And keep Bush's grubby hands off your social security!

That Is All.

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Registered: Aug 2000
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Posts: 7686

Meeting will launch public campaign on Bush's economic reforms
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10416390.htm
By Ron Hutcheson

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Getting an early start on an ambitious second-term agenda, President Bush convenes a two-day economic forum Wednesday to build support for his plans to limit lawsuits and overhaul Social Security and the federal income tax.

To kick off this first stage of a carefully planned public-lobbying campaign, Bush has invited business leaders, academics and other experts who share his opinions to a "White House Conference on the Economy." Participants will cover a range of topics in a series of panel discussions, but the conversation is sure to echo Bush's views.

After focusing in his first term on the war on terrorism and the Iraq invasion, the president has signaled his intention to make domestic policy the centerpiece of his next four years. His top legislative priorities include far-reaching plans to let workers invest some of their Social Security payroll taxes in the stock market, a sweeping overhaul of the federal income-tax system and new limits on damage awards in civil lawsuits.

White House officials said the two-day conference was part of a "public education" campaign to jump-start a debate that will carry over into the new Congress in January. At Thursday's session, a panel on Social Security will highlight the coming financial strains on a system that soon will have to provide retirement benefits to 79 million baby boomers.

Other panels will examine the societal costs of medical-liability lawsuits and other types of litigation, the economic effects of rising health-care costs, the demand for well-trained workers, and long-term threats to the economy.

"I don't think on Social Security there's going to be any difference of opinion," said panelist Tim Penny, a former Democratic congressman from Minnesota. "I have a point of view that is pretty close to the White House point of view."

Some panelists are major Republican Party donors. Robert Nardelli, the head of Home Depot, will participate in a discussion on "the high cost of lawsuit abuse." He donated $45,000 to the Republican Party and $4,000 to Bush last year, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

But there will be plenty of dissenters outside the conference room at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, a few blocks from the White House. A coalition of liberal organizations, including the AFL-CIO, the NAACP and the National Organization for Women, has scheduled a news conference Thursday to announce a national campaign to block the president's Social Security plan.

The groups hope to mobilize public opinion against Bush's plan to partially privatize the federal-retirement insurance system by giving workers the chance to put some of their payroll taxes in private investment accounts. Critics contend that the president's plan, intended to help Social Security avoid bankruptcy projected for 2042, would destabilize the program. Others support the concept of a partially privatized system but worry about the short-term cost of change.

Because Bush's plan would let younger workers divert some of their payroll taxes to private investments, the federal government would have to find some way to maintain benefits to current retirees. Estimates on the size of the funding shortfall range from $800 billion to $2 trillion over 10 years.

The president has ruled out increasing payroll taxes, and advisers say he's willing to pile up short-term debt for the potential long-term benefits of restructuring Social Security. That approach might meet resistance not only from Democrats determined to avoid putting now-guaranteed benefits at risk from market fluctuations, but also from Republicans and business groups worried about the potential drag on the economy from the growing federal debt.

In a letter to the president Monday, the Business Roundtable, a leading business group, urged action to balance the federal budget. The organization, which represents 160 leading corporations, also said it strongly favored reducing spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Although conference participants may toss out various ideas for meeting Bush's goals, White House officials said the gathering wouldn't produce a more specific plan for Social Security. Bush plans to withhold support for any specific proposal until the outline of a consensus emerges in Congress.

"There will be different ideas expressed within the conference about how we move forward on these different issues," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "But I think, generally speaking, you'll have people that share his philosophy."

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Registered: Aug 2000
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Those Who Voted for Bush May Be In for a Big Surprise
- Concerns closer to his heart could trump all that talk about values.
JONATHAN CHAIT:
November 5, 2004
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion...omment-opinions
Dear rural/exurban Christian conservative voters: Congratulations on your election victory. By going to the polls in unprecedented numbers Tuesday, you overwhelmed an enormous Democratic turnout and returned President Bush to office, along with a number of very conservative senators. Now Bush is preparing to repay your efforts by moving immediately on your highest priorities: a flat tax and privatizing Social Security.

Oh, wait. You didn't particularly hanker for those things, did you? The election is so far in the past now that it has receded into a hazy memory. But as I recall, you voted for Bush because of his position on one issue — he opposes gay marriage — and on the general principle that he is a godly man who shares your values. Now Bush has decided, conveniently enough, that those values are identical to those of his wealthy financiers. (Go to any meeting of the Club for Growth, a group of affluent, libertarian-leaning Bush backers who mostly live in Washington and New York City. I'm sure you'll find them, like victorious Okla-homophobe Sen. Tom Coburn, deeply concerned about rampant high school lesbianism in the Sooner State.)

Bush is claiming the election as a mandate. There are, however, a couple of ways to interpret that. The conventional meaning is that a candidate gained office by promising to do a certain thing. Ronald Reagan in 1980 had a mandate to cut taxes and bolster the military. Bill Clinton in 1992 had a mandate to raise taxes on the rich, expand healthcare, reform welfare. Those were the central promises of the two campaigns.

Bush uses the word somewhat differently. As he told reporters Thursday, "I earned capital in the campaign — political capital — and now I intend to spend it."

What that means is that all you small-town folk voted for him not to pursue an agenda but just because he embodies family values. That gives him political power that he can use for purposes utterly unrelated to the source of his popularity. Sure, Bush mentioned some of these purposes in the campaign. But the references tended to be perfunctory and in code. Start with taxes.

Though Bush talks about tax "simplification," he doesn't seriously believe it. He has littered the tax code with complicated new provisions, including a ludicrous corporate tax bill stuffed with special provisions for sausage producers, foreign dog-race gamblers and the like. Simplification really means making the tax code flatter — i.e. less progressive. He doesn't care about making taxes simpler; he just wants rich people to pay a smaller share of them. There's little evidence to suggest small-town Ohioans flocked to the polls so they could have a portion of George Soros' tax burden shifted onto themselves.

On Social Security, Bush was just as evasive. Here, again, the tiny minority of people who closely follow this understood his code words. He wants to divert Social Security taxes into private accounts. Because those taxes pay for the benefits of current retirees, his plan would require cutting benefits or driving the national debt even higher.

Bush, of course, went to great pains to distance himself from these unpleasant facts. In 2001, he appointed a commission that proposed three plans to partly privatize Social Security, but he declined to embrace the panel's findings. A few weeks before the election, a New York Times Magazine story reported that Bush told GOP donors he planned to push privatization after the election. John Kerry's campaign circulated a nonpartisan study showing what the benefit cuts in one of the commission's plans would entail. Bush's spokesman dismissed the charge that he favored privatization or benefit-cutting as a "false, baseless attack."

Here's what Bush said Thursday: "I had asked [Daniel Patrick Moynihan], prior to his passing, to chair a committee of notable Americans to come up with some ideas on Social Security, and they did so. And it's a good place for members of Congress to start."

Got that? Last week, if you had described Bush as advocating the commission's plans, he would have denounced you for promoting a hysterical lie. Now they are at the top of the list of things he's saying he was elected specifically to enact.

Meanwhile, what about opposing gay marriage, the one mandate Bush might legitimately claim? Earlier this year, Bush barely lifted a finger in support of a constitutional amendment banning it. (Compare this to the furious arm-twisting he performs to get moderates to back his tax cuts.) If he has a mandate to do anything, it's to bring up the amendment again. However, he's said nothing about doing so, and nobody expects him to.

No surprise there — it's hardly in the Republican Party's interest. If gay marriage is banned everywhere, what's going to bring all those heartland conservatives to the polls next time?

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Registered: Apr 2003
Location: I cant say I buy this completely,
Posts: 2506

What the fuck ever.

sorry but someone had to say it.

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Norfolk, VA
Posts: 4678

Actually a think a lot of Republican (the party, not the individuals) moralizing is hypocritical.

I have called myself a single-issue voter on the abortion issue in the past, because to me, it makes very little sense to worry about tax reform or helping out the Iraqis when we have state-sanctioned murder to worry about in our own backyard.

Obviously those of you who are pro-choice disagree about the status of the fetus, so your priorities are a bit different.

In any case, the question is, if Bush promises to reform abortion laws and so forth, but then doesn't do a good job, was it a good idea to vote for Bush?

Yes and no. The thing is, if we had a Democrat in office and a Democratic Congress, odds are that abortion rights would be expanded in America. Whereas with the Republicans in control at least things won't get any worse. I doubt they will improve anything not because I don't think the nation would go for it--I've seen polls go both ways regarding an abortion ban--but rather because the Republicans don't seem to be able to get their shit together, so I don't anticipate them getting anything done in the near future.

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Conservatives push Bush to back gay marriage ban
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/01/25/news/gay.html
By David D. Kirkpatrick and Sheryl Gay Stolberg The New York Times

Wednesday, January 26, 2005
A coalition of major conservative Christian groups is threatening to withhold support for President George W. Bush's plans to remake Social Security unless Bush vigorously champions a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

The threat came as some Senate Republicans vowed to reintroduce the proposed amendment, which failed in the Senate last year by a substantial margin. But party leaders, who left it off their list of priorities for the legislative year, said they had no immediate plans to bring it to the floor because they still lacked the votes to pass it.

The coalition that wrote the letter, known as the Arlington Group, is impatient. In a confidential letter to Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser, the group said it was disappointed with the White House's decision to put Social Security and other economic issues ahead of its paramount interest: opposition to same-sex marriage.

The letter, dated Jan. 18, pointed out that many social conservatives who voted for Bush because of his stance on social issues lack equivalent enthusiasm for changing the retirement system or tax issues. To pass such sweeping changes, members of the group argue, Bush will need the coalition's support.

"We couldn't help but notice the contrast between how the president is approaching the difficult issue of Social Security privatization where the public is deeply divided and the marriage issue where public opinion is overwhelmingly on his side," the letter said.

The letter continued, "When the administration adopts a defeatist attitude on an issue that is at the top of our agenda, it becomes impossible for us to unite our movement on an issue such as Social Security privatization where there are already deep misgivings."

The letter also expressed alarm at recent comments Bush made to The Washington Post, including his statement that "nothing will happen" on the marriage amendment for now because many senators did not see a need for it.

The group asked Rove to designate "a top level" official to coordinate opposition to same-sex marriage, as a show of commitment to the issue.

Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said Monday that "the president was simply talking about a situation that exists in the Senate, not about his personal commitment or his willingness to continue to push this issue."

Duffy said that the "president remains very committed to a marriage amendment" and added, "We always welcome suggestions from our friends."

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Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Den
Posts: 11014

Abortion thread, yay.

Funky Paul Weyrich quote:

quote:

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"I have the privilege of serving on the Executive Committee of the Arlington Group. I have never worked with a finer group of people. Each one approaches this effort with a prayerful disposition and an open mind.

Would that every policy effort in which I engage could have people with the same attitude. Clearly the participants of the Arlington Group approach life with an attitude of: "How can we contribute to the common good?"

Only God knows what we will be able to accomplish or how long we will be together. For now, the Arlington Group is the one bright spot in the body politick. It is a group of men and women, the leaders of the values voters, who seek to stem the tide of the cultural decline of this once great nation. They are reasonable yet they don't believe in compromise when compromise is not absolutely required. They are tough yet they are all-giving toward the poor and less fortunate. They think in cosmic terms yet they are not utopian. It is so wonderful to be associated with them. As we say in the tradition of the Eastern Church: "May God grant them many years!"

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