July 28, 2006
Congressional GOP Again Displays Gross IncompetenceIt is absolutely astounding how utterly inept the GOP is. Instead of using substantive issues on which the Republican position enjoys a clear advantage among the American people, the GOP scrambles to vote on disparate and mostly symbolic issues in an ad hoc fashion with no guiding principles and no cohesive agenda or vision. The latest is a vote to raise the federal minimum wage, which is irrelevant to most families and a job-killer (as with any commodity, the demand for labor will decline when labor must be purchased at an artificially high price).
"Whether people like it or not, we need to go ahead with it," said Republican Congressman Mike Castle, who supports the idea. "There's a general agreement among Republicans (opposing the raise) that "maybe we don't like it much, but we need to move forward with it just for political reasons."I regret to inform you that, in 2006, if there's a general agreement among Republicans, you can almost be sure that they're wrong (aside from fortitude on the war on terror, the GOP should look to "Seinfeld" when thinking about almost any other issue). This is simply stupid policy and awful politics beause, if the Congressional GOP thinks they'll win the hearts and minds of any liberals who believe higher prices are good for the economy, they're morons.
Dan Henninger, on the other hand, writes about an issue that should galvanzie public support.
Israel's population, with Katyushas raining down on them by the thousands, is a metaphor for the world ahead of commoditized missile weaponry. Not thinking about how to survive in that world is foolhardy. Hezbollah's Katyusha barrage, coming so soon after North Korea's aggressive, highly publicized Taepodong test, elevates all this as a political issue.Let the Democrats tell Americans that, while Iran and North Korea are building and exporting missiles to the worst people on Earth, they oppose the development of countermeasures; and let Republicans bask in the glow of being the only ones to want to defend our country. But no, we have votes on flag burning and the minimum wage.Historically the Democratic Party has committed itself to suppressing the development of anti-missile technologies. This opposition dates to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. During the Cold War, when the enemy was the Soviet Union, opponents of missile defense opted for the policy known as mutual assured destruction, or MAD. Sens. Biden, Levin, Kerry and Kennedy all in recent times have spoken out against missile defense. The party's platform in 2000 opposed "an ill-conceived missile defense system that would plunge us into a new arms race." But closing off missile-defense technologies today means we default again to MAD, or a kind of MAD Jr.
You heard it here: the Republican party will lose the House this November and will need a lot of luck to retain the Senate even with Vice President Cheney's vote. And they will only have their own incompetence to blame for it. It could have been different, if they'd have adopted the GOPBloggers strategy for victory.
Posted by Jonathan R. on July 28, 2006 10:26 AM
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Comments
Passing the minimum wage would be a bold Political move by the GOP, especially if they are able to push through an Estate Tax cut also. I agree that the minimum wage hike is meaningless, however it is clear that the American people are very ignorant of simple Economics principles. While I agree that some jobs will be lost, most of these will be low wage jobs anyway. Also a cut in the Estate Tax would create more jobs then the minimum wage eliminates. If this passes, so much for the Democrats biggest issue during the election. Sad to say many independents feel good about raising the minimum wage and it could definitely influence their votes. Raising it over 3 years will have minimal impact, just as raising it back during the Clinton era effected things minimally.
Posted by: Bush Rules at July 28, 2006 04:22 PM
Jonathan -- you're a very good writer and I enjoy reading your thoughts. But it's very disappointing to see GOPBloggers regress into yet another me-too libertarian-conservative blog that routinely confuses policy for politics. For the longest time this was an excellent site for political discussion -- for intellectual political support for the GOP. There are enough policy shops (and policy shops-lite) out there -- Heritage, Cato, National Review, etc. It'd be nice to hear a political explanation for why this is a smart move as opposed to a policy rant about how inept the GOP is.
In reality, this move is quite ingenious from a party standpoint. It isn't about "winning over" anybody -- it's about removing from the clutches of the Democrats a club they'd otherwise use to energize their base and beat Republicans with. And witht he MSM bullhorn along for the ride, this would have been a huge loser for Republicans.
Don't want to raise the minimum wage? Hey, neither do I. But there are important tax cuts packaged with it (all in all negating its otherwise job-killing effects), and the issue saves Republicans a bloody month-long beating.
Posted by: Tyler at July 29, 2006 01:28 AM
I sure wish that I could disagree with you, but you are absolutely right. As soon as Republicans stopped being conservatives, that was it. Raising the minimum wage is just one more example of how badly Republicans have lost their way.
A NATIONAL education program? From Republicans? I hate State education programs. Education belongs to the locals.
The Farm Bill? The Energy Bill? The Transportation Bill? All of these are the kind of pork barrel legislation that would make Lyndon Johnson proud.
The very best thing for the Republican Party right now is to lose the House and the Senate and spend two years of soul searching while we find a real conservative to run for President.
If the Republican Party cannot find its roots, its time to find an alternative.
Posted by: smoker at July 30, 2006 10:26 PM
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