Redstate

... are useless. It just places on future generations the burden of paying the bill. You are just borrowing money from your sons And creating inflaction on the process.

Tax cuts are easy. Getting rid of the interest groups and cut the federal spending will take integrity and experience.

Getting rid of the interest groups and cut the federal spending will take integrity and experience.

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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.

Under Mr. Romney as a governor of Taxachussets, state spending went from $22.3 billion to $28.1 billion, an annual increase of 6.5 percent.

The Club for Growth gave Romney a decent evaluation, especially for holding spending growth to below the combined inflation plus population growth rate.

By no means was Romney perfect. But consider that the legislature he worked with was 5 to 1 Democrat and his record looks pretty good.

McCain represents Arizona, a conservative state, which makes you wonder why he is always joining hands with Lefties like Ted Kennedy (amnesty for illegals), Russ Feingold (hushing up conservatives and stamping out the 1st amendment) and Tom Daschle (opposition to the Bush tax cuts).

McCain's behavior would be slightly more defensible if he represented a liberal state and he had to act like a moderate in order to get reelected. But Arizona has no problem supporting true blue conservatives.

Why the Kennedy kiss ups by McCain?

I was a fan of Romney een back while he was governor. I remember at least the last two budgets where he had nearly $1 billion of line-item veto spending cuts for each of those proposed budgets. Nearly all of these were overridden by te 87% liberal Democrat legislature.

Romney has committed to not signing a federal budget unless it is is 1% lower than the rate of inflation. That's the kind of fiscal responsibility we need in Washington.

Jeff Fuller
http://iowansforromney.blogspot.com/
See my disclaimer of Romney Support at my blogsite line above (essentially I'm an unpaid grassroots supporter/blogger).

Yes, I remember the Mass Legislature even overrode his veto on a zoo spending bill. They were bound, set, and determined to spend in Mass. Romney's countless vetoes would not have been so easily over-rideen had he not been in Mass.

"Don't ever be afraid to see what you see." ~Ronald Reagan

Romney got my attention initially (I was a Hunter supporter back when) when he began talking about

1) Limiting spending to inflation minus 1% (exactly the issue here)

2) Decreasing rates of corporate taxation (highest in the world here)

3) Implementing tort reform (and actually addressing the very real business-end of the situation and not just the medical)

4) Getting a handle on entitlement spending, starting by encouraging self-reliance and doing away with the Capital Gains tax for those in the middle class.

"Don't ever be afraid to see what you see." ~Ronald Reagan

Romney is the guy that knows issue #2 from your list. London and Dubai are taking over as economic capitals of the world because they are making steps to make it easier for corporations. Why isn't Romney talking economy more!?!

Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone. --Mitt Romney

He began running this ad today and has been running similar pro economy ads in Michigan for the last month.

While I think the ad could have been better, I think its a better approach than going negative directly. Traditionally, a candidate would depend more on secondary sources to go negative.

I liked that ad, it's upbeat. You can call ads negative or comparison, but these kinds of ads get people to sit up and notice. Romney has a strong voice too.

Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone. --Mitt Romney

I disagree.

John Kennedy cut taxes; Reagan cut taxes; George W Bush cut taxes.

The result? A booming economy each time.

If Bush had just sat on his hands during the Clinton recession, the result would have been a demand for extended unemployment compensation while unemployment grew to over 8 percent and the Republican party would have regained its reputation as the Herbert Hoover party.

Herbert Hoover raised taxes during the depression.

The Republican party should not re-adopt Hoover's economic policies.

Reagan cut taxes when the Fed was inducing a recession to deal with inflation. That was sensible. It was classical Keynesian stimulus. Unfortunately, the tax cut was too deep to be sustainable, so taxes did go up again, but not enough to stop real national debt from doubling on Reagan's watch from two to four trillion.

Bush, too, has increased real national debt. That, effectively, is the same as raising taxes, because, in some way, it has to be paid for.

But freelunch, you miss the beauty of the scheme. This way the politicians can hand out goodies to the voters for free, knowing that only the non-voters in the population, the children, will ever have to pay for them.

It's up to $30,000 a piece now, boys and girls. That's what we all owe on the debt.

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This is the Democrat argument against tax cuts. McCain has subscribed to it hook, line and sinker.

I would feel much better about McCain if he were running for the Democrat presidential nomination.

McCain didn't have a problem with increasing the deficit when he was supporting his McCain-Kennedy immigration bill, which the Heritage foundation determined would increase the size of the welfare state dramatically.

... but only if you are on the wrong side of it. That's not the case. Just ask Greg Mankiw. Isn't he an adviser to Romney?

If the economy is in recession, as it was when Presdient Bush asked Congress to cut taxes in 2001, there are two considerations:

(1) Increasing economic growth.
(2) The budget deficit.

Herbert Hoover raised taxes during the Great Depression in order to reduce the budget deficit.

The question for Republicans is this: Are we going to be the party of Herbert Hoover (John McCain) or the party of Ronald Reagan (George W Bush) in terms of focusing on economic growth?

Notice that the Democrats were glad to have McCain as an ally during the fight over the Bush tax cuts. The Democrats wanted the economy to remain in recession so that they could use a sluggish economy as a campaign issue in 2004, just as they had in 1992 against Bush's father.

McCain has been a good ally of Democrats but not such a good ally of Republicans.

1) People always tend to make large scale problems seem because of small actions. The biggest problem was that the government had a philosophy at the time that when economic times were tough you needed to reduce the money supply of the economy. That is one of the biggest reasons for the great depression.

2) Spiral I would like your definition of a "booming economy". The problem about using tax cuts as a means for economic growth is that it is not immediate and takes awhile, unlike fed cuts. Our economy has never been "booming". A "booming" economy is one like in the 90s we had. The last upswing in the economy we had was do to the housing bubble, which kept everything afloat.
In my opinion right now we need a recession. The market needs to sort itself out right now and the last thing we need in something like what happened in the 1970s where we were focused to much on unemployment and not on inflation.

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Notice to All - I am an independent who has voted for Senator Bayh (Democrat) and Senator Lugar (Republican) along with over 60% of my state. You may take what I say with a grain of salt at your own party'

McCain hasn't successfully cut spending in his 21 years as a US Senator.

Who has cut spending?

At least McCain had the courage to vote against the tax cuts because there were no associated spending cuts.

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McCain-Democrats had the "courage" to vote against tax cuts.

Many Democrats had the "courage" to vote against the Reagan tax cuts.

All that demonstrates is that McCain is as misguided on economic policy as are the Democrats.

Do you support the tax on the unborn that our national debt represents?

I support tax cuts to stimulate the economy. I support spending cuts on social-welfare programs or at least restraining spending to below the growth rate of the economy (which is easier when you have tax cuts to stimulate the economy).

As a general principle, I don't believe that one must be condition on the other.

Reagan didn't support such a "linkage" and I certainly don't support that.

At what point does the debt matter to you?

It's cheap now. When it stops being cheap, we'll stop borrowing it and start raising taxes.

At that point, ideology won't matter.

Yes, ideally deficit spending should be during a recession when borrowing is cheap, and taxes should be paying down debt during an expansion when borrowing is more expensive. That also happens to help stabilize the economic cycle. Unfortunately, that has not been our experience. Politicians like to offer something for nothing, even when it isn't true and voters like to believe that they can get something for nothing, even if they know it isn't true.

As long as politicians aren't held accountable for bad policy decisions, we'll get bad policy decisions.

I was in high school and college during the Reagan years.

I supported spending cuts to reduce the deficit. But I did not support tax increases to reduce the deficit.

The debt matters. But consider that despite the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, despite the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, despite No Child Left Behind, the Farm Bill and other government boondoggles, the deficit is lower, as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product than it was when President Reagan left office.

And I'm a huge Reagan fan. He took an economy that was flat on its back and got it whipped back in shape with tax cuts and by eliminating price controls on oil and gasoline. Reagan is my favorite president of the 20th century.

George W Bush is second on my list.

Given that McCain has rejected the Reagan-GWB tax policy, McCain is among my least favorite Republicans.

Where were the spending cuts during Reagan? They didn't happen. That was why the nominal debt nearly tripled under Reagan and the real debt doubled. So-called tax cuts that increase the debt are fake tax cuts, they are nothing but taxes on the future. Running up debt for no necessary reason, whether on your Visa card or the US Treasury, is irresponsible and unsustainable. Visa does expect you to pay your debt, so do those who own treasuries.

There were a few good things at the beginning. The Reagan Administration did not get in the way of the Fed when it crushed inflation. That was good for the country long-term, but it cost many people their livelihood and their businesses. At least the initial deficit spending did what was expected. It buffered the recession caused, in part, by tight monetary policy. Deficit spending does that. Keynesian fiscal policy works. After that, the continuing decrease in the price of oil helped keep inflation down for the rest of Reagan's terms which allowed the country to run up debt at a record pace.

Reagan also supported a very necessary long term reform of Social Security funding including the tax increase to pay for it.

Dems: Tax and Spend

Tax cuts without spending cuts: Tax the unborn and Spend

McCain and fiscal conservatives: Cut the spending, downsize the government, give people their money back.

... there are two guys in this race that have a proven record on spending cut: McCain and Paul.

Check this:

Senator McCain supported the interests of the National Association of Government Contractors 0 percent in 2006.

Senator McCain supported the interests of the National Taxpayers Union 88 percent in 2006.

When the government contractors rate a guy so low and the NTU rates the same guy so high, I know this is my kind of decision maker.

McCain's amnesty proposal, according to the heritage foundation, would have dramatically increased social-welfare spending. McCain even voted to make sure that illegal immigrants who fraudulently used fake Social Security numbers would get Social Security credits for their work during this time, increasing the burden on a Social Security system that is headed towards bankruptcy.

A comrade in arms! Amen, Brother Cordpt!

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That's it! That's exactly what tax cuts without cap spendings mean.

Hurray, ktcat!

I am grateful that Romney is attacking McCain.

I wasn't very impressed with Mitt Romney until he started his slashing attacks against McCain's record. For over a decade I have watched John McCain poke conservatives like me in the eyes by supporting the watering down of the 1st amendment, opposition to tax cuts, siding with the Democrats on their right to filibuster appeals court nominee Miguel Estrata, amnesty for illegal aliens, denouncing the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth when they attacked his buddy John Kerry.

I have wanted Republicans to punish McCain for being a Democrat in Republican clothing.

So, when Mitt Romney started attacking McCain-Feingold and McCain-Kennedy, I couldn't help but cheer loudly, even if I doubted whether Romney was a true conservative.

I still do have some doubts about Romney. But I believe that McCain must be punished for his Leftwing behavior over the years. Otherwise other Republicans might start teaming up with Ted Kennedy and conservatives will really be screwed.

You missed my point. It wasn't that Mitt is attacking McCain, it's that he's attacking him as the establishment candidate of the status quo. You have pointed out where McCain has broken from the establishment, but right now the focus of Romney's theme seems to be that McCain IS the establishment. That was what I wanted comment on because it doesn't seem to make any sense to me.

John S. McCain III.

McCain is the Establishment because he's been in Washington for so long. He's an old-timer we've heard about for years.

Romney is new. And an outsider.

Politic Minds | Tucker, Georgia

Do you honestly think that is going to fly? I agree that Mitt can run as an outsider, but that's only half the equation.

John S. McCain III.

Inside with the most liberal Dems in the Senate and outside of his own party. Yeah, just who we need to head up the party.
Which party is the problem, McCain doesn't seem to know.

I recommend reading his book "Turnaround" on the 2002 Olympics and Hugh Hewitt's book; while biased because he's a big supporter of him was actually very informative.

and I'm a Romney supporter (but McCain is my 2nd choice). it seems Romney hasn't learned to draw distinctions without going negative (I don't think he's crossed the line into too negative, but still more than necessary). that seems clearly to have hurt him in Iowa with Huckabee, and it probably won't help in NH with McCain.

but, I think even if he takes 2nd place in NH as well as IA, he'll still be in decent shape if he follows up a win in WY with a win in MI. a 2nd in MI probably wouldn't kill him either, but it would seriously hurt him unless he can somehow ride a wave of strong 2nd places (but he'll still have to mix in some decent amount of 1sts) to a good delegate count while the rest of the field splits up. sort of a strange version of the Giuliani strategy. of course Rudy's advantage is that all the states (minus potentially Florida) where he's doing well haven't had their delegate totals slashed by jumping the gun, while many of Mitt's strong states have.

I don't agree with Goldwater or Reagan on everything.
I don't even agree with myself on everything.

So, answering your questions:

1)No.
2)On immigration, I stand with Ronald Reagan and Greg Mankiw, Romney's economics adviser.

But, come on, two bills in 20 years? One can't live with that? Conservatism is not about perfection. Humans, and decision makers, are not flawless. Unless, of course, you are a plain fabrication.

...in that I believe in the free market, and thus the free flow of labor. However, the unfettered flow of immigrants is not compatable with a welfare state, like we have. Also, there are serious socio-demographic concerns there as well - they must assimilate, and English must be the official language of the United States. Finally, the integrity of our elections must remain intact - we need strict voter ID laws in every state.

If the above mentioned things are implemented, I would have supported the immigration bill. Since they are not, that bill would have been a disaster.

“.....women and minorities hardest hit”

I supported McCain-Feingold at the time. Since that time, I've realized that it was well intentioned but has parts that infringe free political speech. In this regard, I am probably more in line with Thompson who went through a similar change of heart. I understand McCain's distinction between speech and money and I might even buy it if it weren't for the fact that the MSM gets all the speech they want broadcast to the whole country without paying for it within donation limits.

But I don't think McCain has bought into the idea that free speech is bad, he just believes that money is not the same as speech. And in some ways the results have not been all bad. They functionally destroyed the union-driven soft money machine and lead to an increase in the number of small donors on both sides. All that said, the restrictions on ads before an election is probably unconstitutional.

Thus, the best I can say now is that 1) it was an effort to make government more responsive to people, not unions which is not a bad idea itself and 2) with a set of imperfect candidates this transgression is outweighed (in my mind) by McCain's strength on the War, fighting pork, fighting spending, and ability to compete in November in a bad R year.

On McCain-Kennedy, first note that I generally supported that legislation despite some disagreements with it. I think the idea that an immigration solution should deal with both 1) the border and 2) those already in the country is still right. I, like McCain, see that because of the 1980s immigration reform and a general distrust of the federal government, most people don't believe the border security parts of the bill will be implemented while the earned legalization portions would. For that reason, I, like McCain, think that an enforcement first reform is the best way to go.

McCain has suggested that the border governors certify that their borders are secure before any reforms try to deal with those in the country already. This bipartisan group of 4 governors would have an incentive to hold out on certification (b/c they probably get money while the border is being secured) and thus their certification would come only after a real change in the border situation.

Once the flow of additional illegal immigrants has stopped (and some trust is re-established), then Congress and the President can work out how to deal with those currently in the country. I think that will end up looking a lot like McCain-Kennedy. You have to pay a fine, pay back taxes, and get in the back of the line of those who have applied to come through legal means. Although McCain has changed his talk to talk about a guest worker program rather than earned legalization. Personally, I think guest worker programs are more harmful (see Turks in Germany) because they create an underclass without citizenship rights and responsibilities and undermine the assimilation process.

But irregardless, the end goal of McCain-Kennedy is still a good thing in my opinion: 1) Stop the flow of illegal immigrants and 2) penalize but accept those who have come over illegal but are not violent criminals.

I still think the immigration snafu has more to do with mistrust of those in charge than actual problems with the terms of the bill. If every part of the bill was fulfilled, I think most conservatives would be happy with the outcome. But there was a complete lack of trust (for good reason) and that crippled it.

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Great post!

I also wanted to throw out that, while I don't think that McCain/Feingold was a good law, there is legal precedent for McCain's position. SCOTUS rules in Buckley v Valeo (1976, I think) that the 1st amendment does permit restrictions on campaign contributions.From a legal perspective, McCain/Feingold(/Thompson) wasn't a restriction of "free speech" at all.

I don't think it's a good law, for a myriad of reasons, but the legal background is there. To characterize it as an intentional disregard for the 1st amendment is unfair, and doesn't reflect the legal precedent on the question.

Caleb Winn

There is no President but Lincoln, and Reagan is his prophet

I'm no expert on CFR - it's not really an issue I care a lot about. But if I remember right, there were some things that I would agree with 100%

1. It raised the amount of money that individuals could give - before that it was only $1,000 per person. This doubled it and then indexed it to inflation if I remember right.

2. It got rid of 'soft money' which was little more than letting the national parties shake down businesses and rich people and strengthened the parties at the expense of individual candidates.

I don't think everything worked out the way it was hoped, but I don't think it was all bad, either.

John S. McCain III.

to see if the sky was falling. I actually agree with you on something. Good posting, and good augmentation to what Adam said.

There's not enough "momentum" to be gained from the Wyoming caucuses to add a single point in New Hampshire.

Are you really sure you want to go on this?

- Senator McCain supported the interests of the CATO Institute--Center for Trade Policy Studies 82 percent

- In 2005-2006 USA Engage gave Senator McCain a grade of A.

Btw, where was CATO on the immigration bill? http://www.freetrade.org/issues/immigration.html

No one campaigned there (except Romney) and it is a caucus system. That's why no one is paying attention and rightfully so.

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One reason it will matter if Romney wins a majority of delegates there is that he could be leading the delegate count and be our front runner instead of Huckabee. How will the MSM spin it then? Yea, this could be very important.

I live in the South, No one comes here, but on election day they all want our votes. I think going to campaign in the "Flyover States" like Wyoming, actually helps because not everyone on the agrees with the views of Rudy or McCain or Huckabee. While rural, they do represent small town America and the values we conservatives are Supposed to be fighting for.

When you think about it on Election night if all you did was win Iowa, NH, and S.C., while every other state is Blue, you can't really say you did a good job there. I know the media loves to whip up Iowa and N.H cause of their track record but honestly, both of those states do not make-up a representative population of voters, or a representative demographic of American citizens.

because he shares their values. They did not vote against Romney because he does not.

Romney's Mormon faith had nothing to do with this; rather, it was more about Huckabee's evangelical faith.

Do you adhere to the theory that Romney's Mormonism works against him? If you do than how can you say that it played no part in this vote? Heck, if you can show that it didn't play a role it would make me feel a whole heck of a lot better.

...Mormonism has nothing to do with the vote choice. Those who claim it is, are nothing more than doing what the Democrats do to Republicans in general. That is, claiming because we do not believe as they do, we are racists, bigots and homophobes.

People in general, and Republicans in particular, I have found vote for the people they agree with, not "against" another person. Those who run those types of campaigns lose. Those who give a reason to vote for them usually win.

I am not bigoted against Mormonism and the tired stereo type needs to go away quickly.

Wubbies World, MSgt, USAF (Retired):
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("An argument is a sequence of statements aimed at demonstrating the truth of an assertion.); }

Perhaps you are not, but can you speak for all huckabee supports. They have been on this site and have stated flat out that one of the reasons they didn't support Romney is because of his religion.

...you will always be able to find jerks. Take for instance the nut church that protests service member funerals. You can always find them.

However, based upon my experience and all the people I know, and I have gone to some church conventions, the jerks are in the minority.

Wubbies World, MSgt, USAF (Retired):
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("An argument is a sequence of statements aimed at demonstrating the truth of an assertion.); }

there is no more racism? Silly.

They voted for him for that. Though maybe they'll be upset if he's elected and decides to park a double wide on the South Lawn.

This is the same kind of thinking that allowed many Baptist to justify slavery. Of course, not all Baptist felt this way, many also were abolistist as well. MLK was also a baptist. At some point you have to move on beyond such things.

http://www.mises.org/pdf/asc/2002/asc8-ritenour.pdf
http://books.google.com/books?id=ioYDJ4GK3tYC&pg=PA224&lpg=PA224&dq=sout...

the split with Northern Baptists in 1845 over the slavery question and the subsequent defeat in the Civil War

http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1108389838.shtml

Edward Cropper, I totally agree. I am an evangelical who listens to Christian radio where many of the hosts (pastors) have been blasting the LDS Church as a cult for months. Coincidence? I think not.

Wouldn't it be interesting to see what happens to the Huckabee phenomenon if Romney were to drop out?

You can sure expect that its a lot higher and more intense for the sub-group Evangelicals. I wouldn't e surprised to see that number double, which would in fact make sense in Iowa. Romeny had 33% non-evangelical, if you drop out 40% anti-mormon then you have 60% of which Romney took 20%, which is prefectly in line with his 33% outside of the group.

I believe that re loads of Evangelicals where Mormonism doesn't matter, a ful 60% in fact. But for someone in that 60% to argue that te remaining 40% also don't care is simply looking at religion through rose colored glassses.

All whinning aside, this isn't likely to change in our lifetime and won't likely change until Christ returns and sets all things in order. AND when that day comes I believe that He will be more concerned with how we treat our neighbor and our enemy, than how hard we fought to prove one religion right or wrong.

From what I read, he was using the Shia and Sunni comment to contrast the religious problems in the Middle East with religious differences here in the States. The difference is completely opposite. Thus, I don't understand your belittling of Romney's comment.

I think your treatment of his comment is similar to how the McCain campaign is misusing the comment Romney made with regards to electing someone from the State Department if you want a President with Foreign Policy experience. It was made as an example of what isn't, not what he believes.

Do you really believe Romney is naive?

I just watched the entire stump, and know exactly what you are talking about. I would also say with certainty that you are completely wrong.
For one thing, you have not proven to anyone that you know more about the Sunni and Shia divide than Romney, so you just come off as sounding arrogant.
Another thing, please explain why comparing that situation to the question presented to Romney was inaccurate? That is exactly the reason we don't want to vote based on Religion. It is the perfect illustration of that point.
Oh yes, just so I can know in the future, did you actually watch or listen to or read the transcript of the event? Because if you didn't than your intentions are clearly biased and uninformed.

Romney was asked about identifying with a candidate based on Religion and if that should be voting criteria. Romney gave a great answer that instead of religion being the criteria it should be the values of the candidate, specifically Judeo-Christian values.

He brought religion into this race.

I should have related it to the diary more.

First, it was packed. Probably 250 or so people. Given the time and place, downtown Manchester on a Friday night, this is good but not surprising

These are pretty good numbers, but not impressive. Mitt needs to generate a lot more buzz in order to have any hope of beating McCain. I heard that Mitt was starting to downgrade some of their NH venues to smaller ones. In contrast, see my comment above.

I think Huck's next real success (as in, 1st or 2nd place finish) will have to wait until he hits the south, but even a close 3rd in NH for Huck will be a real success on its own. If he beats Romney (not likely)? What a coup that would be!

...a much better one. Thanks much - just do that the first time from now on :-)