A
Anonymous
Guest
I had the chance to watch David Frum on Bloomberg TV last night promoting his new book "Comeback"...Frum is a conservative journalist for many conservative publications- former GW speechwriter- and the writer that gave GW the "Axis of Evil" phrase.....
Anyway while I don't agree with all his ideas on globalism and such-- I think ole Red Robin, A+, and others who chastise my comments about the death of the Republican party should read his book....
He says the Republican party of today is almost dead in the water- and stands only the slightest chance of taking the White House - and of holding on to seats in Congress- and only if they make some major changes, fast...And he says much of the cause is because of GW's/Republican parties failure to change with the changing populace of the country...And while he blamed much of the Parties demise on GW- he also said that he thinks GW actually believed he was doing right invading Irag- and that they had WMD's (which I too believe he was sincere about back then)-- but then after being misled and outed- and misled by key advisors (Rummy ?) that this would be a 90 day war and out, with the minimum of troops, he just began sinking into a quagmire of deception and lack of transparency... He puts much of the blame of GW's failure of a Presidency (which he believes) on the neocon staff and advisors that GW surrounded himself with...He said that in talking with the President- he believes GW is disappointed in himself for taking the misguided advise that he did...
He says the Republican party for 7 years has totally deserted the middle class American-- and that has led to the protectionist and change waves that are sweeping the country...And it will take some drastic moves by the Party to get many of these Independent, former Republican and Reagan Democrats back...
The other major thing he mentioned that caught my Libertian ear-- was the fact that he also believes the US population as a whole is changing/has changed on many social issues such as same sex marriage- and abortion-- and that both have become more acceptable to the majority of the population - and that its an issue the Republican Party has to get off their live and die stance on-- or they will continue to die......
Anyway while I don't agree with all his ideas on globalism and such-- I think ole Red Robin, A+, and others who chastise my comments about the death of the Republican party should read his book....
He says the Republican party of today is almost dead in the water- and stands only the slightest chance of taking the White House - and of holding on to seats in Congress- and only if they make some major changes, fast...And he says much of the cause is because of GW's/Republican parties failure to change with the changing populace of the country...And while he blamed much of the Parties demise on GW- he also said that he thinks GW actually believed he was doing right invading Irag- and that they had WMD's (which I too believe he was sincere about back then)-- but then after being misled and outed- and misled by key advisors (Rummy ?) that this would be a 90 day war and out, with the minimum of troops, he just began sinking into a quagmire of deception and lack of transparency... He puts much of the blame of GW's failure of a Presidency (which he believes) on the neocon staff and advisors that GW surrounded himself with...He said that in talking with the President- he believes GW is disappointed in himself for taking the misguided advise that he did...
He says the Republican party for 7 years has totally deserted the middle class American-- and that has led to the protectionist and change waves that are sweeping the country...And it will take some drastic moves by the Party to get many of these Independent, former Republican and Reagan Democrats back...
And it's also true that I am no kind of populist. My big concern at the moment is precisely that the radical rise in American economic inequality since 1980 - and the serious slowdown of midde-class income growth that has set in since 2000 - will tempt America to adopt quack economic ideas that will impoverish this country and do radical damage to the world economy.
One of the big concerns in Comeback is the relative economic decline of Europe and the possibility of similar decline in the US. Together, the major democratic nations (the US and Canada, western Europe, Japan, Australia, and the Asian allies) produced 50% of world economic output in 1985. As things are going, that group of nations - now reinforced by central Europe, South Korea, Taiwan, and Mexico) will produce only 33% of world output in 2025. That's a huge negative swing in world economic power!
If it is correct that China's economy is about half the size of the US economy today, and if it is true that China is growing at the 9% claimed by the Chinese authorities, a simple calculation can plot the convergence of the US and China. If the US grows at its current 3%, China will not catch up in this century. But if the US slows to the 2% of the 1970s - or the 1% of western Europe in the 1990s - then American hegemony will end in the lifetimes of most readers of this website.
Sustaining 3% economic growth is thus a vital national security - as well as economic - concern. My prescriptions for how to maintain the desired 3% are relentlessly orthodox: free trade, low taxes on saving and investment, lawsuit reform, transparent capital markets, etc. etc. etc.
Where I have become heterodox is that it is glaringly apparent to me that the things that need to be done to sustain America's economic greatness are not going to win many votes in middle-class America. If conservatives are to protect the US economy against the John Edwardses of this world, they have to take seriously the economic discontents of a middle that (wrongly) blames globalization for its economic woes.
My prescription for that - for raising middle-class incomes - involves universal (private-sector) health insurance, curtailment of unskilled immigration, greater subsidies to lower-middle-income saving, and tax reforms aimed at lightening the burden of the payroll tax rather than the income tax - and a bunch of other ideas that will alas cause my old colleagues at the Wall Street Journal editorial page to sputter and cough.
You can call that technocracy if you want. I call it inoculation against the distempers of the times.
http://frum.nationalreview.com/
The other major thing he mentioned that caught my Libertian ear-- was the fact that he also believes the US population as a whole is changing/has changed on many social issues such as same sex marriage- and abortion-- and that both have become more acceptable to the majority of the population - and that its an issue the Republican Party has to get off their live and die stance on-- or they will continue to die......