Perhaps I'm overly hopeful or merely just so confident in the logic, reason and persuasiveness of the objective historical empirical data that supports the supply-side, limited government position, but I can't avoid the conclusion that this should be a fantastic political environment for Republicans. Before you think this sounds crazy, read on.

Only 22% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, which makes President Bush's ratings seem stratospheric. Furthermore, only 14% of Americans express a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Congress, which puts it dead last in Gallup's poll on this topic (even below HMOs). In this context, shouldn't it be easy to run against expanding government and, in fact, in favor of limiting government? After all, whether the issue is entitlements, health care or education, all supposedly strong Democratic issues, shouldn't Republicans do well by simply ask voters "whom do you trust?"

Social Security is a government-run Ponzi scheme in which payroll taxes collected are immediately spent: there are no savings accounts, lockboxes or piles of money waiting anywhere. What comes in goes right out and no taxpayer has any legal or contractual right to any specific level of benefits when reaching retirement (the Supreme Court has made this clear in Flemming v. Nestor). Essentially, we pay FICA taxes all our lives and then when we retire, we all are at the mercy of some future Congress that will decide how much it will hand out to us in our monthly allowance. In contrast, a privatized retirement financing plan would allow each of us to put money away, invest it in a diversified and low-cost portfolio that would outperform what Social Security currently returns and build a nest egg that we own. That's the big difference: we would own our retirement assets and not be dependent on Congress and, G-d forbid if you died young, you could pass it to your heirs; in Social Security, you have no assets. So, whom do you trust more to finance your retirement, yourself or a group of 535 politicians who will be in Congress decades from now? Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Likewise for health care. Would you prefer to create a nationalized health care system, which would combine the compassion of the IRS, the efficiency of FEMA and the effectiveness of the Border Patrol? Would you rather have the government be the monopolistic provider of health insurance, or would you prefer to have a liberated, national market in which health insurers would have to compete for your business the same way Allstate, Geico, Progressive and State Farm all do in auto insurance? Would you rather have your HR department decide what options you will have every year and have your health insurance tied to your job, or would you rather have your health insurance be totally independent from your employer so that you could change jobs without having to change insurance? Whom do you trust more to provide you with health care, a government program along the lines of Canada's or Britain's), or a free market of providers and insurers who must compete on cost and quality?

Same goes for education. Our primary education system, where the government is nearly a monopoly provider, is among the developed world's worst. Our colleges and universities, however, are a beacon for the world's most energetic minds and we attract the cream of the crop globally. A major distinction is that financial aid for college goes to students, while government spending on primary education goes straight to the schools. If education dollars went to families who then were free to send their kids to whichever schools they wanted, the schools would be forced to provide a quality education or be forced out of business.

In the end, the message should be all about trust and empowerment. In this day and age, asking voters whether they trust a bunch of political hacks more than they trust themselves should yield an obvious answer. And it should be a winner to tell Americans that we want to empower them to take control and responsibility for their own lives, with government assitstance for those less priviledged directed towards individuals to use in the free market instead of towards bloated monopolistic bureacracies. In 2008, we need crisp differentiation from socialist-leaning Democrats rather than strategies aimed at confusing the public about those distinctions (see Schip). I believe it's a winning message, especially in a time in which politicians are viewed so negatively.