Republicans Discuss the Issues

Politics & Elections
1

This thread addresses the robust debate occurring within Republican circles regarding the GOP nomination. As of the moment, the top 3 candidates according to the RCP polling average are Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Jeb Bush, in that order. I’ll focus on those main candidates.

Ben Carson doesn’t think we need a Bureau of Veterans Affairs: he wants the Department of Defense to handle that. Former soldiers can be given health savings accounts and Veteran’s hospitals turned into specialized clinics for traumatic brain injuries and limb replacements.

I’m not sure about what the other Republican candidates think of that proposal. I guess they don’t have a problem with it if they haven’t commented on it. Personally I agree with Henry Howard, a spokesman for the American Legion, “A large percent of veterans getting healthcare are great, the veterans love it.” I think we should honor our veterans, not stab them in the back. But I’m willing to have that debate.

I follow Donald Trump on twitter; it’s a good way to track the Republican front-runner. Yesterday he mocked Jeb who had received the endorsement of the former House Majority Leader. Trump tweeted, “Who wants the endorsement of a guy (@EricCantor) who lost in perhaps the greatest upset in the history of Congress?” It’s an interesting question: WAPO asks, "Why in the world is Jeb Bush embracing Eric Cantor? There are many reasons, not least of all fundraising. Jeb has raised over $100 million you know. Still, Trump’s question remains unanswered AFAICT.

Jeb Bush thinks Trump’s immigration plan is crazy. The brother of the former President tweets, “.@realDonaldTrump is pushing a plan that is not conservative, wildly unrealistic & not reflective of our values.” The American Conservative has similar feelings about the Iraq War, “…the idea that the U.S. was somehow forced by the evidence to launch the invasion of Iraq is a shameful lie.”

I thought that Trump’s idea to build a big wall around the US was pretty conservative. Now I don’t know what to think: Jeb says that he is conservative too. Who is telling the truth? Who is the most conservative Republican running?

2

As I may have mentioned, I have a sentimental fondness for old fashioned lefty radicalism. Wobblies, Eugene V. Debs, “industrial proletariat”, all that steampunk radicalism. But not all of it is quaintly outdated. For instance, the distinction between a conservative and a reactionary. A conservative is concerned with change at a prudent and cautious pace, or is an impediment to progress, depending. Lefties would slander some conservatives by calling them reactionaries, people who wanted not only to slow progress, but dismantle it. Back to the Past and Call It the Future.

But reactionaries really do exist. Conservatives, once upon a time, recognized them in their midst, and criticized them, even rebuked them. It isn’t slander to call this cageful of meth-addled baboons reactionaries. A wall across America’s southern border isn’t even last century, its 19th century. Turn back the sexual revolution to Ozzie and Harriett, bustles and petticoats.

And if they totally wreck the Republican Party, then all the ambitious cynics who crave power will pretend to have leftist values, rather than pretend to be tighty righty Puritans who’s assholes slam shut when they crap.

So, these reactionaries are a big threat, not so much because they might destroy the Dem Party, but because of what they will do to the Republican. We of the left are human, we have navels installed, we require honest criticism. Conservatives, not reactionaries.

We can wish the Republican Party a speedy recovery after they spend some time in rehab. But for now, we have to concentrate on clobbering them.

3

Well, Trump isn’t even close to the most conservative, he wants to raise taxes on rich people. The most conservative is Ted Cruz.

As for Carson’s plan, it has merit, although it will cost more. Basically, it sounds like he wants to give vets money to seek private care for health care needs that don’t have anything to do with military injuries. Makes sense, but the VA, being a single payer system, is cheaper. Doesn’t match up with his plan for a 10% flat tax.

4

Now with immigration, the issue is trust. Trump’s plan is stupid. What Americans want is amnesty for those here already, but a tough, earned amnesty. Learn English, clean record, pay a fine. Americans also want better border security so that we’re not just revisiting this issue again in 20 years when we have another 12 million illegals. The Senate immigration bill supposedly gives Americans what they want. Except not quite. See, not only does the President have the authority to waive a lot of the amnesty requirements, the bill also says that if an undocumented immigrant is ineligible, that does not mean he has to be deported. Plus border security measures in the bill are already law, they just haven’t been done yet. Why should we believe that they’ll be implemented this time? It just has the look of a massive bait and switch.

So the best candidate on immigration will be one who addresses these concerns in a way that make Americans think he can be trusted. Marco Rubio and Rand Paul probably have the advantage there, because both are open to immigration reform but both acknowledge the history of lying to the public.

5

What merit does it have, then? It sounds to me like mostly an administrative change, to me, and for those the relevant figure of merit usually is cost. Would Carson’s plan result in a better quality of care for veterans, maybe? How? I can’t see how it would make a difference one way or the other, there.

6

IMHO its is for the Jewish vote. Not very important as votes go, but as a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University said recently (Benjamin Ginsberg) “The importance of the Jews isn’t their votes. They account for a huge share of the activist base of the Democratic Party and account for much of the money available to Democratic candidates.” Republicans know that and have attempted many times to get some of that activism but we have to thank the Tea Party for getting rid of Cantor and now there are no easy pickings for the Republican effort in this area. So this will have to do now.

With Cantor gone there are no more Republican Jewish senators and only just recently they got one representative from New York in the house. (That is enough for many extreme conservatives to dismiss him).

7

Is it not just a handout to the brain-surgeon lobby (from a former brain surgeon)?

8

I don’t have a problem with Carson’s plan, based on my initial reading. I’m willing to be persuaded.

I had five years of healthcare because I’m a veteran of iraq, which was well and good. Except for the fact that for a good portion I didn’t have a car and the nearest clinic was 30 monies away, or so. Had I had an HSA I could have used the account to subsidze my insurance through my university.

Plus, everyone knows what a joke the VA is. I’ve complained about it on this board before.

9

I doubt whether Carson’s plan is backed by a white paper. If you wanted to give Veterans private care (not a great idea) you’d give them guaranteed private insurance. A health savings account might work for routine care, but health care costs can vary a lot across individuals. That’s why we have insurance (public or private). People don’t know whether their number will come up, so they insure themselves against catastrophe. Carson’s plan is built around an applause line: it isn’t serious.

Also the elderly are pretty happy with the VA. During the Iraq War the system was overcome with young guys with novel injuries that occur during -you know- wartime. The system was more oriented towards things like diabetes. It had difficulty adjusting to the shift in the patient mix.

10

Hm, that might explain why my father thought so highly of them (he didn’t find it amusing when I pointed out that it was a government-run single-payer system, just like he said would be catastrophic for the country): They’ve seen plenty of cases of Agent Orange-related prostate cancer from Vietnam vets, and so they knew how to deal with it.

Actually, their care of him was even better than he acknowledged, since they’ve also seen plenty of mental health issues from vets. But he refused to acknowledge that he needed treatment, there.

11

Once you can get into the system they’re perfectly fine, from what I’ve seen at least. The problem is the system. My counselor was great…after I waited over a month for a phone call. Really, a vet comes to you asking to talk to someone and you make them wait a month?

12

Can we please stop using the word “conservative” for radical/revolutionary types who want to smash things?

A conservative, in the ideal primary sense, presumably protects what he has (or what his constituents have). Someone laying off federal employees and denouncing Washington should have to work hard, explaining why that’s not anti-conservative, mitigating that reputation, to even get to use the name.

Ted Cruz may be a lot of things. Conservative he ain’t.

13

It’s ideology trumping reality.

The VA is best compared to the British health care system: it has government run hospitals. Medicare is a single payer system. The VA is actually left of single payer – and has pretty solid cost controls to boot.

The current health care system spends massively on administration, whose job is to do everything they can to pass the bill on to someone else. But at least we no longer have rescission in the US, like we did before the ACA passed. If you pay your insurance bills, they can’t yank away insurance because you didn’t tell them about your acne. Yes, this happened. To cancer patients.

Tuning a health care system is actually a policy challenge. But it’s fairly safe to say that government via applause lines doesn’t work too well. Better to base your policy on research. Oh, and only morons use “Most conservative” or “Most liberal” as their preeminent guide to policy, especially intra-party policy. It’s an idiotic and evasive way of framing the issues, but we’ll cover it here in this thread because it’s the way Jeb Bush presents himself.

14

Let’s review what Trump has to say. From twitter: [INDENT][INDENT]When I intelligently turned down The Club For Growth crazy request for $1,000,000, they got nasty.What a waste of money that would have been.

The president of the pathetic Club For Growth came to my office in N.Y.C. and asked for a ridiculous $1,000,000 contribution. I said no way! [/INDENT][/INDENT] Trump is correct. The Club For Growth is basically one of the nuttiest collections of wackadoodle crackpots on the political scene. I doubt whether any other GOP Presidential candidate will have the balls to dress them down.

Trump’s critique wasn’t especially substantive of course. Neither was mine: I’m just learning to get the hang of things.

Trump doesn’t like haters, losers and Karl Rove: [INDENT]Every Poll has me winning BIG.If you listen to dopey Karl Rove, a Trump hater, on @oreillyfactor, you would think I’m doing poorly. @FoxNews

Why does @oreillyfactor and @FoxNews always have Karl Rove on. He spent $430 million and lost ALL races. A dope who said Romney won election. [/INDENT]

I agree with Trump that campaign finance reform would be a good idea: [INDENT]Jeb is spending millions of dollars on “hit” ads funded by lobbyists & special interests. Bad system.

Yet another weak hit by a candidate with a failing campaign. Will Jeb sink as low in the polls as the others who have gone after me?

Wow, Jeb Bush just lost three of his top fundraisers - they quit! [/INDENT]

Jeb Bush releases a video. It shows Donald Trump speaking in 1999: [INDENT]"I lived in New York City, in Manhattan all my life so my views are a little different than if I lived in Iowa. Ad Wars: Jeb Bush and Donald Trump Duke It Out - ABC News " [/INDENT] I agree with Jeb here: like most of us, Trump has never lived in Iowa.

ABC’s characterization of the Jeb Bush info-ad continue: [INDENT] You then hear Trump say “I am very pro-choice” and proclaim that he thinks Hillary Clinton would do a good job in Iran negotiations. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asks he if identifies more as a Democrat or a Republican. Trump responds, “you’d be shocked if I said that, in many cases, I probably identify more as a democrat.”

And then the kicker – an unidentified questioner asks why he’s a Republican. To which Trump responds, “I have no idea." [/INDENT] I don’t know why Trump originally registered as a Republican either. I guess I know why Jeb is a Republican: he was born into the party. Trump currently opposes Roe v Wade, AFAIK. Hey, George Bush Sr flip-flopped on abortion too.

15

How is Jeb Bush spending money on things that are being funded by someone else?

16

I didn’t even know Cantor was Jewish until now. Do Jews keep a running tally on who’s Jewish in government so they can support them or something? :smiley:

17

My Jewish relatives divide all the world into “Jew” and “Non Jew.” (Or sometimes just “MOT”)

18

I guess you’re entitled to use whatever words you want for things, but a) don’t expect everyone else to change and b) if you want to understand and be understood, it might be best to adopt standard conventions. In the US, conservative means right-wing. And Cruz is very, very right-wing.

19

I remember when Wm F Buckley Jr was Conservative. I remember when Goldwater was Conservative.

Today, Ted Cruz is Conservative. Seriously Conservative. Like it or not.

20

“MOT”?