100 monkeys typing.

Does Not Play Well With Others

Amazing how the CEO President is unable to listen to or consider the need of his shareholder and that the reorgs being demanded by the board of directors are landing on deaf ears. After 20 consecutive quarters of precipitous declination in both fiscal returns as well as overall performance, the din of dissatisfaction has become a roar.

Dick Armey

At the national level, where President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress are presiding over the largest expansion of government since LBJ's Great Society, things are no better. Our political base expects elected leaders to cut both tax rates and spending, because they know that the real tax burden is reflected in the overall size of government.

Instead, we have embarrassing spectacles like the 2005 highway bill. Costing $295 billion, it is 35% larger than the last transportation bill, fueled by 6,371 earmarks doled out to favored political constituencies. By comparison, the 1987 highway bill was vetoed by Ronald Reagan for containing relatively few (152) earmarks. Overall, even excluding defense and homeland security spending, the growth rate of discretionary spending adjusted for inflation is at a 40-year high.

All of our leaders are complicit in this spending spree. President Bush has yet to veto a single spending bill. The House leadership refuses to reign in appropriators, claiming, as one of them preposterously put it, that "there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget."

So Dick lays out the folly of the current incumbency and though I don't agree with him on all points, he does a fine job of outlining the areas requiring the most change.

Larry Sabato

Accept Political Reality on Iraq. The American people have turned against your war, and they're not turning back. Congressman John Murtha's revolt is just the latest sign. Iraq is an argument you can no longer win. Yes, the December elections there may give you a bit of breathing space, but your maneuvering room is permanently limited. Whether you like it or not, you will have to withdraw a substantial portion of our troops before the midterm elections in November 2006 or risk a Democratic takeover of Congress. (Think you're miserable now? Just wait until the two dozen legislative investigations start under Democratic management!) You can keep some American troops in Iraqi fallback positions and in friendly countries in the general neighborhood. That's it, though, unless you want to see your Presidency held hostage to a foreign adventure the public opposes. (See your fellow Texan, Johnson, Lyndon Baines. And maybe Carter, Jimmy for good measure.)

It's frank talk like this that would benefit this adminstration the most and almost guaranteed to be the last type of dialogue we'd hear in the Oval Office.

Course, we're also talking about the world's most fascinatingly myopic, self-congratulatory circle-jerk ever. Expectations have been lowered across the board.

Posted by kerry at December 1, 2005 07:48 AM