New Post! Big Government!
So I have not written a blog in a long time and I did rather like the short debate that took place on my old post between Ryan and Matt, but I guess since they both did agree on me making a new post I will do just that.
Please bear with me as this train of thought has not fully been run through yet on my part, and I am writing this mostly as a way of getting my thoughts out there and working though them.
So I have been reading UST's paper, The Aquin, for quite some time now and most of the time its interesting to read about what is going on and all the "controversies" that may be arising at any given time; but I have never considered them a "liberal" news source. Well yesterday I found a paper on my dorm room doorstep, this paper proclaimed itself to be the "conservative" UST paper, which made me wonder if my Aquin was indeed liberal. I digress though, the point is that I was looking over this "conservative" student newspaper and reading some article about big government not being the goal of the constitution when it was written. More or less it just talked about the big government versus small government stuff that most of us have heard several times before and this got me thinking about government "size".
Today in my poli sci class the topic was political economies, nothing really to do with big government or little government, and port control was mentioned which harkened my memory back to the whole government size issue, and it seems that the Republican Party has found themselves in a kind of contradiction when government size is concerned.
So try and follow me here as I attempt to stumble through this; the Republican Party (hereafter RP) criticizes the Democratic Party (hereafter DP) for their attempted involvement in everything, claiming that it is not the role of government to be that involved in what people should be able to handle themselves. So the RP is for smaller less involved government, and along with that lower tax, due to a lack or required funding. Knowing this basic premises it seems odd to me that the RP of this current administration is taking on such a high number of DP big government ideas; that is not to say the RP is for social programs and increased taxes, but rather for "safety" and increased prices.
One good example that is a current issue has to do with the Dubai Port Company and their buy out of a British company who was in charge of many of our large container ports. So with a large amount of our shipping ports being controlled by and Arab country, never mind that they are one of our most friendly Arab countries in that whole region, our president and the RP want to say that they (Dubai) can not have that type of foothold in our country. The proposed solution is to make large container shipping ports directly under government control in the interest of "safety". The same solution has been proposed, and is still being proposed by many RP members, for airport security.
I am not entirely sure I have given you enough to see what I am thinking, but in short the anti big government RP is attempting to increase the governments relative size dramatically by taking control of something that has been a private industry for the last 250 years. Would the RP increase taxes to cover these new costs? Probably not, that money would just go into our national debt (kind of ironic if you really think about what that debt is) but at the same time the US Government is not equipped to deal with the shipping industry and would not be able to manage our ports at the same low costs as the current outside companies can; what does that mean for you and me? The handbag that came from China that cost $15 jumps up in price to $20 to cover the increased port fees. So no we are not being taxed more but we sure as heck are paying more.
I guess my overall point is that the RP for all of their small government aims, for their mantra of "is it really the governments job to handle that?" has taken some pretty big steps in increasing the size of government under the ruse of "safety".
11 comments:
See, Matt and I were right, that was an interesting post.
Anyway, I agree with you, and I think the issue is that the Republican party is actually undergoing a gradual shift in their core belief structure, and that this has been exascerbated by both George W's presidency, and by 9/11.
The Republican ideals that my uncles (my extended family is predominantly repub) talk and used to talk about dealt with reduction of government programs such as welfare, and reducing federal taxes, etc.
The problem for the Republican party is that these issues, though still very viable, don't do well in large population centers where, believe it or not, a lot of votes tend to come from (I know, crazy right?) The republicans than decided to do something prudent, adopt new constituencies. If they couldn't take the major cities...they needed to lock down the rural areas, the south, and affluent suburbs. They have done this by courting the 'religious right' and 'soccer moms.' The quotations are because I am generalizing.
The one thing these two groups have in commons are their desire for control...controlling video games and ratings, controlling abortion and marriage, et al. To do this the republicans needed to exercise judicial power, and to involve the federal government.
So that is domino number 1 falling. The second occurence was 9/11 which, with the Patriot Act and the Iraq War meant that the current administration suddenly had to have an extremely active role in national security. This led to the consolidation of departments into Homeland Security, wiretapping, and in some respects to the recent judicial scandal with Gonzales.
Finally, with both branches of the legislative branch now in Democratic control, the Republican party needs to exercise executive/federal power even MORE strongly to get any of it's agenda accomplished.
If the Democrats take the presidency in 2008, you will very likely see a reversion of Republican ideology back to small government as they oppose the executive branch.
On a side note by the way, I saw that repub newspaper at St. Thomas too...it was sort of weak, a few decent articles, but the ones on toy guns and gangster rap were not what I would call 'serious issue' articles...and their guest writer was more inflammatory than informative.
For starters, I'd say this is relatively old news. Second, Bush and Co. are not representative of the entire Republican party. Lots of them out there - for example, Romney and Guilliani, two prominent '08 players - are big into small government.
Third, you wrote: "the US Government is not equipped to deal with the shipping industry and would not be able to manage our ports at the same low costs as the current outside companies can". I take a huge issue with this. Where's your proof? Are you aware that this is a fundamental republican/libertarian argument for eliminating any and every government program? Did you know that in some areas the government could probably run things much better than private companies? Sometimes maybe not, but I'm putting you to your proof here. What ya got?
Finally, this is for Ryan - I think your line about "desire for control" seriously misapprehends and mischaraterizes many of the people who ultimately voted for Bush, and does a huge disservice to the centrist population of the country. It was centrists who put Bush in power. The religious right was going to vote for him anyways. It was the fact that he appealed to the mainstream better than Kerry (and to the mainstream in the right states vs. Gore) that got him the election. So back off.
It was centrists who put Bush in power.
I won't take issue with this in terms of his election vs. Al Gore (the one that he 'sort of' won, though he incontrivertably(sp?) lost the popular vote) In that election he talked about being a 'uniter' and not a 'divider' and generally played to the center, with I would say mixed results.
In the second election I take serious issue with this. I do not believe he played to the center in any way. After four years of his administration it was very clear that he was not a centrist. Basically he played on patriotic and religious themes, (see, for example, the Swift Vote Veterans for Truth ads) and he let Kerry hang himself, because Kerry was uncharismatic and often came across as being elitest.
On another note, I can't speak to Giuliani's preference for large or small gov't--I would need to know more about him as a candidate.
Mitt Romney supports some small government initiatives, but if he attained the White House I would expect him to be very Bush-like in enlarging Federal administrations. I went to the same high-school as he did (Belmont Hill in MA) and had a chance to speak with him, and listen to him speak there...and I feel pretty confident in making that assertion.
I do agree with you about the Federal government vis a vis private companies...I am not in favor of extreme privatization...when it comes to ports for example private companies could charge ridiculous tariffs, whereas the government would be regulated in this manner, etc.
Whether or not Bush played to the extremes or middle has nothing to do with those who voted for him. We knew the extremes would vote for him and same with other extremes for Kerry. It was the fact that more people in the middle tended to agree with Bush on certain issues (namely religious ones) that pushed it in his favor. Kerry couldn't attract those voters because he didn't seem to have any moral identity. And that really mattered to us centrists in 2004. Just like being anti-war mattered to us in 2006. thus getting Dems into some power. Again, that was a close election, but centrists were the difference, since the war issue was most important to most of us, just like traditionally moral (abortion/gay marriage, etc.) issues mattered more in 2000 and 2004.
For the record, I would identify myself as a centrist, as I agree with some aspects of conservatism and some of liberalism. I am not going to vote either Democratic or Republican without examining the issues.
I do not think that those religious votes you are ascribing to Bush were centrist at all...those are Republican votes, because the conservative stance aligns with that of the Christian church on abortion and marriage. (Ironic however that these issues seem to matter more than the fact he began a war...what happened to 'thou shalt not kill?')
I like to think, and obviously this is only an opinion, that a centrist is somebody who votes after considering ISSUES impartially, not on a moral, religious, or party line agenda.
Voting based on morality is what got us president Bush in the first place, because the Clinton scandal in some ways impaired Gore's initial campaign, and Bush was able to portray himself as a 'family values' candidate. However, despite Clintons undeniably immoral actions he was a better administrator of this country in many ways...and I think he demonstrates the pitfalls of voting based only on moral issues.
Should we have a president who respects human life and believes in justice? Yes, obviously some moral attributes are nessecary. Other than that, issues, intelligence, and how capable the person is should be paramount.
None of this contradicts your point that Kerry's moral vacuousness may have swayed that election...in fact you are probably right. I would only argue that a true centrist would be less swayed by preconceived moral notions. The whole concept of being in the center implies a kind of impartiality to me. Others may see that differantly.
Um, since most Americans consider themselves to be moral, I'd say it's pretty darn centrist to come at issues with a moral view point.
And while it was easy to label "religious votes" as republican votes in '00 and '04, they were inaccurately labeled. Your assumption, and the common analysis after '00 and '04 (but not necessarily pre-'00) is that because the religious vote is pro-life and anti-same-sex marraige it therefore will always side with the republican view on that. However, what that misses is that the religious vote is staunchly anti-war (yes, indeed, what happened to "thou shalt not kill"? Seems it may have won the democrats the '06 elections!), as well as pro-welfare, generally, strongly in favor of education and healthcare, etc. So in fact the religious vote can't be called republican or democrat, but rather must be considered as a flexible constincuency that has, in fact, decided the outcome of the '00, '04, and '06 elections. In '00 and '04 most of the religious vote went along with Bush because he did a great job preaching those anti-abortion/anti-same-sex marriage values. In '06 those values weren't center stage, and the Dems did a great job preaching anti-war messages - to the exact same crowd that swayed Republican in previous elections.
Our voter pool is relatively static. The same people vote over and over, and rarely do we see a huge swelling in the turnout by one "typically republican" (i.e. the wealthy) or "typically democrat" (i.e. inner city residents) group that affects the outcome of an election. Usually the numbers are pretty unflinching; the same number of wealthy, the same number of inner city residetns, etc. It's a question of what the centrists decide to do, and why they decide to do it. In '00 and '04 they went Bush because he preached to certain values that centrists held in common with the Republican position.. In '06 the Democrats did what Kerry couldn't do in '04 - preach to certain values that the Democrats/Kerry hel in common with centrists.
And if you don't buy what I'm saying, please, just stop freaking calling me a Republican because I'm religious. A lot of the media has done that over the past election cycles, but they did that because it was easy and quick. Not because it was actually correct. If it were actually correct, then we couldn't explain the '06 results. But the truth is that many religious persons are actually centrists; they're stuck between two parties, neither of which actually represents what they want in a candidate, and so they generally try to pick the lesser of two evils. That what they thought they were getting with Republicans in '00 and '04. They didn't buy it any more in '06. And '08 will be very very itneresting. If Gulliani wins the Republican nomination, I can gaurantee you the lesser evil will be the Democrat.
Yes, calling you or anybody a republican just because they are religious is a lazy generalization on my part, I apologize for that.
I'm interested in your definition of our voter pool as 'static' My impression is that while some people are likely to vote, and some are more apathetic, various election-defining issues might draw out radically differant groups.
(For example an election that centers around illegal immigration issues vs. one where death tax reforms are the main topic of contention...although in the post 9/11 world I suppose no issues as prosaic as those are likely to dominate any elections on a national scale)
I don't have any specific numbers to back up my claims right now, but I think the voter pool is relatively static.
I think your impression synchs up with how the media portrays our voter pool, and, to be honest, how our political parties really do too.
I'll acknowledge that there is some flexibility in our voter pool; voter turn out rises and falls, yes. But it doesn't rise or fall that much. I wouldn't go to the polls for just one issue, and to be honest, I don't think I know too many people who would. Everyone I know who votes pretty much votes every time, and those who don't vote simply don't ever vote (I don't know too many of these people).
I think those running for office also like to overlook this fact - it's supposedly easier to drum up support by reaching out to a demographic that typically votes for your party than it is to try to appeal to the minds of people who have voted against your party in the past. And it's certainly more comfortable for a candidate. Of course, this mis-characterizes the voter pool as made up of pre-determined Republicans and Democrats, when in fact lots of people are centrists, and can go either way in an election.
I do not have time to read this all right now... but I must say... wow...
yeah-now you should try to get other people comment too.
Two things then I am moving on to a new post.
1) On the first point that you challenged me Matt, the Governments ability to run US ports at a comparable cost to third parties. I would like to provide some clarification; I did not intend to say that the government could not do it, but rather that it is not equipped to do it at this time, due to the fact that they currently do not. No government organization exists at this time to fulfill such a job, and in order for it to be done such an organization would need to be create, or a new branch of an existing organization formed, costing money, and this new org or branch would need to run the gauntlet of trial and error on how to best operate, costing money as well. The consumers would be responsible for bearing the burden of that costly transition. Also I do not wish my thoughts on this to be confused with the idea that government can not do things better than outside sources only that outside sources have the luxury of specialization whereas the government can not (at least it shouldn't) focus on just one aspect of business, security, the economy, or anything else for that matter. Regarding the tariff issue that Ryan mentioned it is not as big of an issue as you may think due to government regulations on imports.
2) I agree that for the most part the voter pool is static and like Matt I cannot provide any solid numbers to prove this but I do feel it is true. However I think you are somewhat underestimating the ability of politicians to sway voters to the polls. Some examples that are supported by recorded numbers, Clintons first election way back when brought more voters in the 18-30 category than in previous elections due to targeted advertising to them. In the first GW election Gore and the Dems were able to scare people who didn't otherwise vote into going to the polls, as a whole it did not work for him as he lost, but it did cause a large voter fluctuation (that election was actually one of the few time my mother has ever voted). Another good example is the 2006 election the Dems were able to win not only because they captured the centrist vote (which they did) but because the Republicans had alienated a large portion of the population who otherwise did not care about voting till that point.
On a side note I think voter turn out will scale up slightly in the future as the US becomes more politically minded and as more people of all age ranges begin to see the consequence of their vote or lack of vote.
That is it, new post.
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