The official blog of the Libertarian Party
January 03, 2007
Bush: Same Stuff, Different Congress
In the op-ed section of today's Wall Street Journal, President Bush outlined his goals for the new Democratic Congress. While the entire piece just begs to be ripped apart,for the purpose of brevity, I'll simply highlight some of the more obvious blunders.
I believe that when America is willing to use her influence abroad, the American people are safer and the world is more secure.
Are waterboards now considered to be influence abroad? I assume he is referring to secret prisons, torture, Gitmo and of course, the Iraq War. With influence like this, it's no wonder we have enemies.
When our nation was attacked, Republicans and Democrats came together to pass the Patriot Act and reform our intelligence agencies.
Republicans and Democrats have a habit of working together to undermine the Constitution with egregious acts designed specifically to deprive law abiding citizens of not just their privacy but their basic legal rights. Is Bush asking for more of the same?
When we saw that our public schools were failing our children, we came together to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, insisting on high standards, accountability and better options for parents.
So now that the federal goverment has taken a greater level of control over local education, we leave more children behind than ever before.
Our priorities begin with defeating the terrorists who killed thousands of innocent Americans on September 11, 2001...
Where's Osama bin Laden, again?
The bottom line is tax relief and spending restraint are good for the American worker, good for the American taxpayer, and good for the federal budget.
Has Bush taken a look at the deficit clock lately? We simply can't afford any more Republican spending restraint.
One important message I took away from the election is that people want to end the secretive process by which Washington insiders are able to slip into legislation billions of dollars of pork-barrel projects that have never been reviewed or voted on by Congress.
The last time I checked the Constitution, Congress votes for spending bills and the President either signs or vetoes them. He sure didn't break out his veto pen to stop Republican pork since he's been in office.
It's time Congress give the president a line-item veto. And today I will announce my own proposal to end this dead-of-the-night process and substantially cut the earmarks passed each year.
While I'm not opposed to the line-item veto, I don't remember Bush writing articles in the Wall Street Journal asking for the line-item veto of Republican bills when the GOP when in charge. This one really smacks of ultimate hypocricy.
Bush closed it all with a thinly veiled threat:
If the Congress chooses to pass bills that are simply political statements, they will have chosen stalemate. If a different approach is taken, the next two years can be fruitful ones for our nation.
I interpret this to mean that if the new Congress wants to repeal the Patriot Act or defund the war in Iraq, these bills will be vetoed. If Congress decides to impose some new civil liberties violation on the American public, in the name of security (of course), it will be considered "fruitful."
It might be nice to see some economic gridlock in order to at least curtail spending, but I'll not hold my breath. To be honest, I don't expect much of the Democratic Congress. They certainly won't cut taxes and many of them voted for the Iraq War and the Patriot Act. By 2008, I expect the death count in Iraq to be higher, the national debt to be higher and for Americans to have lost a few more of our cherished liberties.
Bush obviously wants more of the same policies that took Republicans out of office. If the Democrats follow his lead, they can be voted out in 2008.
Posted by Stephen Gordon at January 3, 2007 10:50 AM
Reader Comments:
Excellent bit of writing, Stephen! That's the sort of thing I'd like to featured on our front page. I think it would be much more powerful there than on the blog, but I'm glad to see it at all.
Thanks!
- Susan
I cannot believe the hypocrisy. How did this man ever get into office? He was re-elected and we can't even get 5% of the vote. I am continually amazed by the stupidity of the voters. I'm moving to New Hampshire and we're taking over at least one state to show how it can be!
Oh, and thanks to the webmaster for putting up a link to the Leadership School.
For those who might be interested, I've posted a critique of a recent LP press release on my website.
But I can't post it here because the URL apparently is tagged as 'spam'. If you
go here:
http://www.lpradicals.org
I have posted a link to the critique.
I offer this only in a spirit of partisan helpfulness; not to create dissention but to try to strengthen the Party. I hope it's accepted that way. Oh, and my offer to provide proofreading and/or copyediting services is still open.
Hmm. The Leadership school link on the left sidebar seems to be a 'rotating' link, which sometimes appears and sometimes does not. I cannot find any static link to the LLS on the site, including the logical place:
http://www.lp.org/action/action.shtml
I hope it can be featured more prominently.
Susan,
"Excellent bit of writing, Stephen! That's the sort of thing I'd like to featured on our front page. "
I agree. Very well done!
Michael,
"How did this man ever get into office?"
first time:
Vote fraud, disenfranchisement of select voting blocks, help from his brother and apparatchiks, friends of the family, US Supreme Court claiming jurisdiction in the interpretation of the Florida
Constitution, not a single Democrat in the US Senate with the guts to challenge this.
second time:
Black box voting, help from a party apparatchik SOS in another key state, select voter-group intimidation, removal of alternative candidates as a choice on some ballots through illegal means, SSDD.
Susan again,
"For those who might be interested, I've posted a critique of a recent LP press release on my website.
(snip)
Lpradicals.org
I have posted a link to the critique."
LPradicals site says:
"NEW:
We are in the process of developing and printing some outreach materials for the LP (NOT for the caucus, but for local LPs to use as outreach material, a task which has been sadly neglected by the national LP), and plan to have our first piece available for local LPs by the end of January 2006. Our goal is to make the radical caucus a source of strength for the Libertarian Party and its goals."
Speaking of proofreading, I'm sure you meant to say 2007, right?
Paulie:
Ha! I knew I'd be hoist by my own petard (or something like that:)
But it is an (unintentional, to be sure) demonstration of my point that no oen should ever rely on his own proofreading of his writing!
- Susan (yes, '07)
Nice piece of writing.
President Bush actually did propose the line item veto in last year's State of the Union address. I think a big part of the problem in establishing line item veto is that the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional nearly 10 years ago, citing that it removes legislative power from Congress. So Congress has to find a way around that ruling, or try to amend the Constitution, which is easier said than done.
Personally, I like line item veto, but with one requirement. The President must be required to veto complete sentences. In Wisconsin, our Governor is able to veto individual characters, including punctuation, symbols, etc., and pull remaining sentence fragments together to form a new sentence. The newly formed sentences completely change the context of the bill. Jim Doyle has employed this practice far too much. He essentially bypasses the legislature and writes his own legislation. The President, or Governor for that matter, shouldn't possess that much power with the veto pen.
"signing statements" are more damaging to the Constitutional integrity of the country than are "earmarks", which is just more spending. "Signing statements" unconstitutionally allow Bush to selectively enforce some parts of bills or to ignore others with no congressional oversight.
of course, many libertarians could care less about this, because they don't support the document or the bill of rights. They want nothing. They hold libertarian "principles" above the nation itself - thus bringing in the chicken and egg question. How can you care about this when you dont care?
Not all libertarians want anrachy. The Constitution is an excellent legal document that we CAN peacefully AGREE to live by should we want to reside in the United States of America. The problem is not the Constitution. The problem is that other laws that violate the Constitution are allowed to stand and be enforced, usually causing the primary document to be useless. We need adherance to the Constitution by the Legislative and Executive Branches. The Supreme Court should be responsible for reviewing every single bill AND signing statement, Executive Order, etc that is written. Constitutionality should be determined by the Supreme Court before any other action is taken with regard to a new bill (and old bills for that matter). This is and should be their primary job. That is the check and balance design of our government but it is not being performed.
If there is no law regarding a particular matter then the item is left to the states or the people as the Constitution mandates. It is such a simple document, children can understand it completely without indepth interpretation. Politicians and lawyers have mucked it up and made it more fluid than it's intended purpose. Judges have decided to legislate from the bench rather than read the Constitution and remember that the people can decide an issue when the Constitution does not address the subject.
More to the point, many libertarians believe there is a purpose for government and that is to protect rights and property from aggressors, not infringe upon those rights.
The Supreme Court has done nothing since FDR's hardfisted intimidation of it in 1937. I can name whole slews of legislation that should be summarily struck down by the Supreme Court:
The Social Security Act
Medicare Act
Fair Labor Standards Act
National Labor Relations Act
Any legislation whatsoever dealing with education.
That is just a VERY small sampling of what a proper strict constructionist court would be striking down. Of course, the last Justice who was anything close to a strict constructionist was Owen Josephus Roberts, who served from 1930 to 1945. Since that time, the Supreme Court has been dominated either by Liberal Activists or Conservative Activists.
A strict constructionist Supreme Court would ignore signing statements as irrelevant.
I cannot believe the hypocrisy. How did this man ever get into office? He was re-elected and we can't even get 5% of the vote.
It just might be possible that 95% of the population sees something wrong with the libertarian party platform.
Foreign policy, immigration to name the obvious two.
Lost,
Different segments of the population see different things wrong with the LP platform, or in most cases, have no idea what it is.
A non-interventionist foreign policy and freedom of immigration are two of the most important libertarian principles.
The reason for the vote totals? Not so much ideology as process. Money and media goes to the likely winners and close runners-up, to buy influence and avoid greater plunder.
The wasted vote fallacy is a big part of the picture. So is government election welfare including the bigger party conventions paid for by the regime, matching funds, incumbents' franking priveleges, ballot access barriers, and so on.
Elections are bandwagons, and the perception that winning is out of reach becomes self-fulfilling.
It's extremely difficult and perhaps impossible to break through all these barriers, no matter what the paltform says.
The Libertarian Party should always advocate more freedom, less government on all issues, otherwise it is not truly libertarian and likely to be worthless or worse.
Oh yeah, Bush stole both elections.
Not that the Democrats are any good.
If Congress simply limited the scope of bills, and did not try to jam everything and the kitchen sink into them (so-called "omnibus bills"), the President wouldn't need a line item veto. The Constitution requires that the President accept or reject a bill as a unit. To allow the President to strike parts of a bill and not others would require a constitutional amendment, but there is no strict need for it. Unfortunately, the people must elect legislators who will avoid drafting and voting for conglomerate bills. (Said another way, they have to kick out legislators who favor or go-along-to-get-along-with omnibus bills.) Is it better to put "discipline" into the Constitution as a hard limitation (e.g., Presidential term limits) or to expect the voters to use a little discipline on their own behalf? It certainly seems as if the strictures must be placed into the Constitution, but the more strictures we establish, the more rigid and brittle our government becomes. It's a careful balancing act, but we're way out of balance now, however you look at the situation.
The Libertarian Party should always advocate more freedom, less government on all issues, otherwise it is not truly libertarian and likely to be worthless or worse.
only in a manner that likely to be successful as futhering the aims of a political party, and is candidate supportive.
it would be very helpful if Bush just did more of what he's doing. 2 more years of it and more deaths in Iraq will hasten he decline of the RP and I give better than 50/50 that the RP will split by 2012 once all the Iraq fallout is known and Cheney is exposed as the power behind the throne.
Timothy, what kind of Republican Party split are you suggesting. I'm in favor of it whatever it is, but I'm curious what you see happening regarding a split and do you really think it will happen or are you just hoping? Republicans are funny creatures. They continue to hail Bush even though he has been a disaster by even their standards. It's almost as if they feel the Democrats win if they speak against Bush because THEY elected him.
Excellent post! I might share a copy of this on other forums and blogs, if you don't mind, Stephen.
One thing is pretty certain, there will be another cycle of Democratic electoral dominance in 2008. Probably slight gains in the House of Representatives, but major gains in the Senate, possibly nine seats, which would bring them to the necessary 60 votes to invoke cloture.
As for the Presidency, well, if the Democrats weren't so damn skilled at pulling defeat out of the jaws of victory, I would say the Democrats had a lock. But, as we all know, the Democrats have a long history of blowing Presidential elections, usually by nominating from the extreme left of their party. A strong Republican candidate could possibly preserve the Presidency for Republicans, but it will be very difficult. The factor that may put the Democrats over the top is the total collapse of the Republican Party in Ohio, and Ohio's electoral votes would swing the current Electoral College landscape to Democrats.
Its really tough to call right now for who would win the primaries so without knowing that, it's not possible to tell who would win the general election. I think Giuliani could win a general election, but maybe not the primary. I think Hilary could easily win the primary but would get killed in a general election unless the Republican were a far-right hellfire and brimstone nutjob. Neither party has figured out that they could easily win the presidency over an extremist if they put out a moderate but moderates have hard times winning primaries. And, aren't we all so blessed that we get to finance through taxes the primaries of parties we don't even belong to? Makes me want to form a militia.
Perhaps we could run a campaign based on the big-spending habits of R&Ds. Today, an honest citizen pays about 50% of their money to the governments, income tax, property tax, sales tax, licensing fees, etc. You could argue that this indicates the governement controlls 50% of commerce and that is half way to Communism, or at least Socialism. Isn't that an angle worth pursuing? Would the oblivous voter "wake up" if it was charged that a vote for Reps and Dems brings us closer to Communism?
Yes, Coach! How 'bout this?
"Republicans and Democrats argue over how to spend 50% of YOUR money as they see fit. Vote Libertarian to keep YOUR money! Businesses will have more money to create more jobs to make more products and sell more services. Vote Libertarian to keep YOUR money and grow the economy! Private charities are 60% more efficient than the government. Vote Libertarian to keep YOUR money, or give it to charity! We'll cut taxes by cutting harmful government waste. Vote Libertarian to keep YOUR money out of their hands and back in your pocket!"
Stephen Gordon and Stephen Van Dyke, co-creators of popular libertarian blog Hammer of Truth (hammeroftruth.com), have conned hundreds of libertarians out of over $12,000!
I wonder why there hasn't been any reply to your comments, Chris.
Question for Nick: Why would Hillary get killed in the general election? What state that went for Kerry has turned more Republican since 2006?
Which state that Kerry won would Hil lose? As Mark B. noted, the GOP has collapsed in Ohio (which Bush carried in 2004.) Can't we add that to Hil's total? And what if she picks Gov. Richardson as running mate - won't that lock up New Mexico? At a two year remove, it is hard to
see how the Democrats can lose in 2008 with Hil.
Far more likely that she will lose their primaries.
From everything I see Hilary is loved by Democrats but hated by everyone else. 35% or so of voters are independents and third party folks so if she wins the primary every single Republican and I think a majority of independents will vote for her opponent. I believe Kerry (who was a terrible choice by Democrats) only got as many votes as he did because so many people were voting against Bush. Hilary won't have Bush as an opponent. I live in NY and Hilary has a love her or hate her persona here in a very Democrat dominated state. There's a reason the Clinton's moved here. They knew she couldn't win in a divided state. Put her in a swing state without Bush to counter with his own love him or hate him persona and I think the Republican walks away with it. The base would turn out in droves to oppose her.
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Excellent bit of writing, Stephen! That's the sort of thing I'd like to featured on our front page. I think it would be much more powerful there than on the blog, but I'm glad to see it at all.
Thanks!
- Susan
Posted by: Susan Hogarth at January 3, 2007 12:55 PM