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The Spectacle Blog
Rich Lowry has an optimistic column out today touting what he calls the “Honesty Caucus” — essentially, Tea Party inspired candidates who have been willing to speak the truth about our looming entitlement crisis. The problem is, in an article aimed at highlighting gutsy Republican candidates, Lowry could only muster two examples (other than current Rep. Paul Ryan).
In his column, Lowry praises Rand Paul and Marco Rubio for their openness. While Rubio has spoken of raising the retirement age, as I wrote last week, he’s also said that the time for personal accounts had “come and gone” — a position that at one time would have been grounds to brand him a RINO.
As even Lowry acknowledges, the GOP’s “Pledge to America” dodged the entitlement issue because serious reform was not a consensus position among Republican candidates (more here). In reality, it has been much more common to see Republicans running away from entitlement reform.
Take just these few examples of GOP candidates gunning for Democratic seats identified as “toss ups” by Cook Political Report…
Tom Ganley, a Republican candidate for the seat in Ohio’s 13th Congressional District, takes this bold stand on Social Security on his website: “My views on Social Security are simple. I believe the retirement age should remain the same, that taxes should not be increased to benefit the program, the program should not be privatized and above all, the program should be protected.”
Sarah Palin endorsed Republican Paul Gosar in Arizona’s 1st District, writing on Facebook that he, “shares our belief that the federal government’s reckless spending is putting us on a dangerous path towards insolvency — and he’s determined to do something about that.” Yet here’s what Gosar has to say about Social Security on his website:
In addition to opposing the privatization of Social Security, I believe the retirement age should not be raised. We must protect benefits while keeping our agreement with seniors by not raising taxes.
Meanwhile, in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, Republican candidate Scott Tipton has just run an ad in which he’s surrounded by senior citizens, attacking John Salazar for cutting Medicare as part of his vote for the new national health care law, and vowing, “I’ll never put our seniors’ future at risk. No cuts, no privatization, and no scaring our seniors just to try and win this election.”
Unfortunately, my experience is that these sort of statements on entitlements are much more common among this year’s crop of GOP candidates than are statements by candidates admitting hard truths, and that’s discouraging. In 2004, President Bush was willing to campaign on Social Security reform, and yet when he tried to get it passed the next year, he was stymied by a Republican Congress. While there may be a few standouts elected this year, it’s hard to see a new GOP majority being any better on entitlements than the prior GOP majority.
David W| 10.5.10 @ 4:46PM
I guess the word "coward" comes to mind.
PattyMor| 10.5.10 @ 4:59PM
We all know that the day is fast approaching that
ALL the entitlement programs will have to be reformed. Or, the government will crash and we will be Greece II. However, those few that have the courage to mention reform get lambasted by the Donkey party. Let the Dems run on their record of gutting Medicare Advantage and instituting medical rationing. The Dems can no longer claim the mantle of the "caring" party.
Besides anything the the Reps. would pass, will get vetoed by the Bamster.
Let pick up all the seat we can in the November election and fix our sights on 2012 and complete reform of the government.
ncatty| 10.5.10 @ 5:08PM
I will be happy for two years of gridlock.
Siegfried X| 10.5.10 @ 5:33PM
The Republican politicians are totally correct. They won't want to become eternal losers getting only 1% of the vote like the Libertarian Party.
Having a tough platform does not change anything. The Libertarian party has never accomplished anything.
As President Reagan's experience shows us, real entitlement reform is bipartisan. A specific plan needs to be developed and explained to the voters. But putting some vague platform plank in just loses elections without changing anything.
I guess each generation needs to experience it for themselves. The young Republicans will learn by making the same mistakes that we older ones did.
Real spending cuts are like a running attack in football: three yards and a cloud of dust.
Another amazing thing is that people see how Obama failed by misreading his mandate, yet they make the same mistake with our mandate. Getting the presidency and 60% of both houses of Congress wasn't a blank check for Obama to turn us into a socialist state, and winning a slim majority in one house of congress won't be a mandate for returning to a libertarian stone age.
The other amusing thing is the double standard compared to two years ago. Back then the Republican party was cheering for big-spending, socialist John "Maverick" McCain, who pledged to pass cap & trade and other left wing stuff. Now two years later that same Republican Party isn't happy with anything except absolute libertarianism tomorrow. Hopefully after going from one extreme to the other we will settle back to Reagan conservatism.
Siegfried X| 10.5.10 @ 5:45PM
One other point: we stopped almost all of Obama's agenda even though they had 59% of both houses of congress and the presidency. Does anyone really believe that the Democrats will let us make major changes with just a slim majority of one (or even both) houses of Congress?
There are over 420 bills which passed the House but are sitting in the Senate, mostly because of Republican filibusters.
Given the large percentage of RINOs in the party, at least 65% of the Senate, and maybe 70%, would need to be Republican in order to pass major legislation with purely Republican votes. Unless someone thinks we're going to have super majorities like that soon, there won't be any major cuts in entitlements.
Siegfried X| 10.5.10 @ 5:54PM
One correction / addition: it _IS_ possible for a Republican president and congress to pass a budget with a simple majority, filibuster proof vote. However there are a lot of limitations and points of order can be raised requiring a 60% super-majority. Only a parliamentarian could say how far Republicans could go with that process, budget reconciliation. It is a possibility though, that real cuts could be made this way.
Curly Smith| 10.5.10 @ 6:49PM
It's fairly easy to get those bigger majorities if you have some stones...
Submit a bill to repeal ObamaCare, the Dems vote "NO".
If the bill still passes and Obama vetoes then attempt to override and force the Dems to vote "NO" again.
Repeat for bills eliminating Corporate Income Taxes and the Estate Tax, pass a flat tax of 10% for individuals, and pass a budget set to 1996 levels.
At all stages force the Dems to vote for higher taxes and more government. If the RINOs don't heed the hand-writing on the wall then send them Lisa Murkowski's new business card.
Repeat every 6 months as necessary.
Force all parties to declare themselves. It's well past time for the bonhomie of "my good friend from across the aisle". But, alas, it does require some stones.
Siegfried X| 10.5.10 @ 7:14PM
I can agree with this in theory. However, given how many RINOs will be in the new congress, it is more likely that Obama will be running the show and forcing us to take votes on left-wing issues.
The new congress will have RINOs like the Maine twins, Graham, Lugar, Hatch, and McCain. Some of the new Republican senators will be RINOs like Kirk and Fiorina.
Even if we have a slim majority in the House, there will be enough RINOs that they'll make a majority with the Democrats. Boehner has already said that he's going to be a bipartisan speaker, looking to let Democrats drive from the back seat.
So considering that we'll have a Marxist president along with a lot of Democrats and RINOs, I'll be very happy we just prevent the Democrats from doing anything left wing in the next two years. That's true even if we don't pass anything conservative.
Ivan| 10.5.10 @ 5:52PM
"While there may be a few standouts elected this year, it's hard to see a new GOP majority being any better on entitlements than the prior GOP majority."
Depressing, but true.
Rich Fisher| 10.5.10 @ 6:24PM
What no one ever seems to mention is that Social Security would be in great shape if Congress hadn't stolen the excess funds year after year. If Social Security had truly been "lock boxed" and invested, not loaned to the government in bogus transactions, there would be plenty of money. What needs to be reformed is the budget system that allows funds intended for and collected for one purpose to be used for something totally different. All the Social Security money ever collected could have been sitting in a bank collecting 3% interest and the system would be sound. Put the blame where it belongs, on the Great Society that had to get money from somewhere so robbed Social Security to pay for it.