What Republicans Want? ☀
This is a good question to ask, though perhaps not entirely appropriate to the article at hand. It’s about what Republicans want, not necessarily what they are going to get, or have gotten in the past. Just as Obama was allowed his grandiose dreams - and people bit - before crashing down to reality, the GOP has its dreams that it seeks, despite past failures, and some unreasonable expectations. Yes, we need to ensure that we are grounded in reality as we look at politicians’ plans, but we also must understand that both sides want more than they expect to get.
Non sequitur.
Perception is woefully skewed here.
You portray the matter as if Republicans expressly attempted in earnest to enact smaller government, deficit reduction, etc.… when in fact, during their time of power, they acted in a completely contrary fashion. It was not the Democrats that thwarted their deficit spending — Republicans overwhelmingly (outside of a few lonesome principled dissenters like Ron Paul or Jeff Flake) voted to spend, spend, spend. Even as a minority party now, they’ve banded together to reject fiscally responsible “pay-as-you-go” budget rules. It’s not a matter of Republicans being thwarted in their efforts of these lauded goals — it’s Republicans themselves that spearheaded such destructive economic behavior.
But let’s take a longer arc view of history. The last 30 years has been a demonstration of conservative economic policy put into action. With the rise of Reaganomics, the U.S. witnessed a shift in economic paradigms — from Keynesianism to the trickle down monetarism championed by Friedman and the slew of conservative think tanks. And what was the fruit of this philosophy swap? The transformation of the U.S. from largest creditor nation to leading debtor, a shift to largest importer of finished goods from leading exporter nation. Standard of living for working class Americans (excluding the top 10% at the top of the economic pyramid) has stagnated.
In other words, proof is in the pudding. And what Republicans are promising now isn’t any different than the “take two tax cuts and call me in the morning” mantra they’ve championed in recent history.
