At least that's what conservative Bruce Bartlett would have you believe. Bartlett worked for Jack Kemp, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. He has been a fellow at the conservative Cato Institute and at the Heritage Foundation.
The Republican Party continues to push for tax cuts, even though the Bush tax cuts led to only mediocre economic growth and huge deficits. Despite what conservatives will tell you, the Congressional Budget Office numbers show that Bush's policies are far more responsible for a greater portion of the projected deficits than the policies of President Obama.
Bartlett points out that the lack of controls and wayward spending advocated by Republicans during the Bush administration and now, and the refusal to go along with cuts proposed by the Obama administration, do not compute with the idea of fiscal responsibility, once the cornerstone of conservatism.
“So much of what passes for conservatism today is just pure partisan opposition,” Mr. Bartlett says. “It’s not conservative at all.”
Bruce Bartlett is a columnist for Forbes.com, the online side of Forbes. He served was executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, Deputy Assistant Secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Treasury Department during the George H.W. Bush Administration, and as a senior policy analyst in the White House for Ronald Reagan. He is the author of many books, including, The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward, will be released Oct. 13.
Sources: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Cato Institute
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 33
http://obamasupporters.gather.com/
It is now our latest FEATURED post.
The sentiment that Mr. Bruce Bartlett has expressed comes as no surprise to me or the millions of Americans tired of the "I hope he fails or just say NO" mantra coming from the Republican Party.
That is why they have lost the Senate, the House, the majority of Governorships and the White House over the last 10 years.
I've asked many times, what is the Republican answer to the fundamental question of what is their plan for dealing with the millions of Americans without affordable health-care.
I've asked over and over again what they are going to do to help the millions of Americans whom file bankruptcy over just one illness in the family.
I've begged them to tell me how it's fiscally responsible for uninsured Americans to use their local hospital as their primary physician's office when the cost of treating an ear infection there cost nearly 1000 dollars when the same treatment cost under 100 dollars at a primary physician's office.
Not once have a gotten a good reply to these answers. The reason why is because they don't have any answers.
It's easier to go the path of spreading lies and fear among the populace. But the American people now see through all of this.
They now has two distinct choices. They can either support health care reform or support the failed policies of the past that has gotten us to the point where we are today.
Saying NO is not an option if you don't have sound reasoning behind doing so. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. It's time to move forward working on behalf of the American people and not that of the special interest groups.
Bartlett points out that the lack of controls and wayward spending advocated by Republicans during the Bush administration and now, and the refusal to go along with cuts proposed by the Obama administration, do not compute with the idea of fiscal responsibility, once the cornerstone of conservatism."
Man I can wait for the attacks on conservative Mr. Barlett to begin coming in from the Right. The next 7 days will turn out to be his worse nightmare.
They'll have to re-assess their battle plan with water like this coming over the bow.
What cuts?
All this shows what many of us have been saying for a long time, Bush was no Reublican. We're still trying to figure out what he was.
Then why in the world did Republicans vote him into office not once, but twice? You knew he wasn't qualified to lead the free world, but yet you sat back and let him steal his way into office definitely once and maybe twice.
John Kerry's military service record and his service as Senator of Massachusetts, made him much more qualified for the office of the Presidency, but the Right did everything in their power, including Swift Boating the Senator in order to put probably the most incompetent American President the World have ever seen.
It's now much to late to Monday morning quarterback and say, "We're still trying to figure out what he was."
You knew what he was after his first four years in office and yet you voted for him again.
Me too R.F.
God forbid we all try and work to get out of the recession. We're such good masochists that we'd rather take nostalgia trips back to when we could blame everything on a Special Ed President, while we swipe our credit cards in glee.
Heaven knows, there are plenty of Republican economists. If the party actually wanted a coherent economic program it could have one. I think the party actually doesn't want one because it's easier and more profitable to react to the opposition's mistakes.
Forbes is on the board of directors, Ruper Murdoch was.
These guys make Regan look like a far left liberal.
They (CATO)want want total unrestricted immigration, no minimum wage, no environmental protection, no worker safety, no overtime pay or limits on hours worked.
No regulations on food supplies, medicines, NOTHING to protect anyone.
Nippy, they have some enviro sounding think tanks, I don't think they support any environemntal protections.
David and Charles seem to be the ones in ultra conservative / libertarian politics/economics.
Freedom works for example, sponsors of tea party anti health care marchers
William and Fred . . who knows.
They ought to be whipped and sent to detention
or better still, ignored.
Instead, we feed them; shore up their nerve and deceit.
It may well be what we deserve. Thus we defeat
our own best intentions to aid and comfort the enemy
of freedom; give over the making of our laws
to precepts antithetical to our cause.