The Democrats used to control this dynamic. As George Will once said, "The only compromise between raising taxes and not raising taxes is raising taxes." When Republicans ask ourselves what good it has done us to control Congress, we have to remember all the stillborn Democratic mischief from which we've been saved.

Their best hope at the moment seems to be for the missus to borrow her husband's 1992 playbook, and run to the right of the Republicans on some issues, and then once elected, try to get your own ideological baggage passed into law. While that could work in the 2008 election, as the 1994 midterm votes show, suckering the American people is not a good way to build a strong governing majority party.

If any Democrat even tries suggesting an idea, half their coalition starts screaming and pelting him with rotten vegetables. They need to shrink, coalesce, develop an underlying idea, like the GOP did in the 60s and 70s, and then move forward. If they insist on being an ad hoc group of disparate interests held together by a shared dislike of the President, they will remain in the wilderness forever. And the American political scene will be the worse for it, as one-party states have no restraint on their excesses.

"...[H}ardly anyone suggested the mass school shooting in Red Lake, Minn., deserved a policy response."

Okay, what would have this desired policy statement have stated? That shooting up schools is bad? That kids who praise Hitler in chatrooms might not make the best role models? That parents should pull themselves away from their reality shows once in a while to see what their offspring are doing? If kids do stuff like this to get attention (as we continually hear), maybe the best response IS to not give them any attention.

From the Brownstein article: "On almost every major question in Washington today, the choice isn't whether to move in a Republican or Democratic direction, but how far in a Republican direction to move."
What is a Republican direction? More spending and regulations?

Yes, but on our programs.

OJ,

Politics is about more than whether one is a Red Sox or a Yankee fan. If the GOP in power is going to tax and spend in as unrestrained a manner as the Democrats, who needs 'em? We might as well start picking our political affiliations based upon shirt color.

bart:

Politics is about more than what you want.

oj,

The only reasons one gets involved in politics are to get done what one wants done or to prevent something one doesn't want done from being done.

If you don't think that fiscal discipline and tax reform aren't central to the GOP agenda of the last two decades, infinitely far more so than all of this idiotic culture war claptrap nobody who walks erect could give a damn about, then you haven't been watching GOP primary results or election returns.

The three biggest explosions in our debt were engineered by FDR, Reagan and Bush. If you cvan read returns there's an easy lesson.

The debt is not the number that matters, but instead it is the debt as a percentage of GDP. Interest rates today are at record lows, thus reducing the debt service. All three had good reasons to expand the debt anyway. The Depression, WWII, winning the Cold War and creating the post-Carter economic expansion, and 9/11 are all pretty important.

Making your own point nugatory.

Bart, Regan got a lot more votes for saying, "abortion stops a beating heart" than he did for "tear down this wall."

When are you going to come down from your libertarian tower and discover that there is no such thing as a fiscally conservative government? That is what business is for. The best a government can do is cut taxes, both to get out of the way of the individual and to limit the funds available to government.

Besides, as long as China insists on subsidizing American debt, why should you stop spending their money?

What are we spending money on now, OJ? Subsidies to agribusiness? Pork barrel projects in benighted places like West Virginia and New Mexico? What happened to tax reform? Reducing the burden on average Americans? What about the National Sales Tax and the repeal of the 16th Amendment? I'm not concerned so much with balancing the budget, simply with reducing the size of government and especially its ability to interfere with our private and economic behaviors.

BTW, beating Ketchup Boy 52-48 is nothing to crow about.

Randall,

Nonsense. Reagan won over Carter because everyone in America understood that either the Ayatollah would return the hostages or his country would glow in the dark in perpetuity. Americans were then and are now overwhelmingly in favor of legalized abortion in at least some circumstances. When partial birth abortion has come up for a referendum vote, it has never failed to get approved, and that is the most objectionable form of abortion.

All I'm asking is for government to shrink and get out of the way. I don't see that as too much to expect from the purportedly conservative party.

The Chinese spigot is running dry.

Not true at all. Before Regan, the Republicans did not have the Christian vote like they do now. Regan's legacy is the socially conservative coalition.

I am trying to say that government is ultimately social, not economic. It will never go away and the most you can hope for is cutting taxes.

However, without the socially conservative coalition that came about because of Regan's stand on abortion, there would not even be tax cuts.

bart:

Who cares? It's just money.

Randall,

The Reagan Democrats were, above all, Cold Warriors disgusted at the McGovernization of the Democratic Party. Reagan's success boiled down to patriotism and defense issues, which is why after the fall of the Berlin Wall, so much of the coalition evanesced. The social conservatives are like the Black activists in the Democratic party. They are important in victory but if you are perceived as giving them too much you risk destroying your candidacy among the vast majority of voters, whose agendas are quite different.

OJ, it's never just 'money.' It's the fuel of individual liberty, and government power to tax and audit is simply a means for government to curtail our individual liberty for no good reason. Without money, freedom is meaningless. As the old saying goes,'Both rich and poor have the right to sleep under the Pont Neuf.'Without money, you are a slave, with it you are free.

Who cares? It's just money.

People with jobs, Orrin, people with jobs.

Where's the evidence that they do?