In my heart of hearts, I still consider myself a moderate republican. I was moderate and even liberal on domestic and social policy. I was for “good government”, not the machine politics in place in Chicago and other cities. I was for a sane social safety net, which I figured a republican could administer more cost-effectively than a democrat could. I favored education as a national investment with a great return. Good business practices made these things possible. Medical decisions, including those regarding reproduction, were between a patient and their doctor.
Then, those beliefs were well within the mainstream of republicanism. But virtually all republicans now call me a liberal democrat.
Back in the day I identified with Nelson Rockefeller’s politics, and remember pubbies like Jacob Javits, George Romney, Chuck Percy, and Mark Hatfield quite fondly. I even liked Nixon tolerably until he was shown to be nuts. Didn’t care for Reagan, John Anderson was my choice. The last national republican who resonated much at all with me was Bush the elder. Even so, I left him and voted for my first democrat ever with Mr. Clinton. And I’ve been unable to bring myself to vote for any national republican candidate since then.
Now, who are national moderate republicans? Chafee’s gone, Snow & Collins are still there, but don’t have much of a following outside of Maine. Huntsman caught my eye for a bit, but he seems to have vanished too.
The other republicans who seem to be embracing the ‘moderate’ stance seem far more conservative than the moderate GOP members of my youth.
Moderate Republicans died when the extremists discovered how easy it was to primary them out of the race. The extremists came into influence because of Reagan’s unholy alliance with the Religious Wrong.
I’m pretty much in agreement with the OP. And with what Finagle wrote: the politicians today who are espousing the moderate Republican positions I grew up on are pretty much all Democrats.
Even men like Bush and Dole and McCain, who I feel had distaste for the extremists in their party, seemed to feel they had to appease the fringe.
Colin Powell was, but he might be a full blown democrat by now. Republicans eat their own by condemning the “RINOs.” I’d like to see a strong 3rd party emerge that is fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Maybe it will be libertarians, maybe something else.
You know, I never got the fiscally conservative but socially liberal thing…Is there ANYONE who champions being fiscally liberal? No one is for waste, except I guess the Repubs who give all the money in the world to their defense contract, oil, coal, and banking buddies.
Anyways, I’ve always noticed that the people who say they’re fiscally conservative and socially liberal don’t know what they’re talking about and often aren’t that politically educated.
Well, sure. I take the phrases to relate to the amount of government intervention in the economy, as well as social spending. It’s a confusing phrase, because “economic liberalism” is actually what people seem to call “fiscal conservatism.” Personally, I self-describe as a social liberal and a fiscal moderate. I have plenty of liberal friends who would certainly describe themselves as fiscally liberal, in the sense of advocating for economic models closer to those of, say, the Scandinavian countries.
I’ve voted Democratic in the last 4 elections and I would sincerely consider voting for Chrisie. He’s gonna have to come up with a plan for the economy that he’s willing to talk about, and show he’s at least socially compassionate if not liberal, but he seems like a rational guy who has realistic values.
Problem: “Raising taxes” without context is misleading.
We’re still in an era where, in an unnecessary gift to the wealthy, we gave them temporary tax cuts from levels (such as the Clinton era) where they prospered and flourished already. In the 20th century, taxes had been much, much higher than that and the country did well.
These tax cuts were set to expire and were extended.
Now, we’re using language where letting temporary and unnecessary (these tax cuts didn’t stop the great recession, and “job creators” were still “skittish” about investing, therefore they were unnecessary and ineffective to boot) tax cuts expire is called “raising taxes”.
Anything the government spends money on is a social program. People pick on welfare but that helps people who need help, as opposed to subsidies to oil and corn companies, who do just fine on their own.
I object to the framing of the argument in terms that re-define all context out of the discussion. This Fox News language is simply** Fox Newspeak.**
Let’s talk about context. If tax rates are still historically low, and we are engaged in heavy and unsustainable borrowing, but we had a balanced budget just 12 years ago if you remove those tax cuts and you remove spending on wars, then the problem is very simple: tax rates are too low, and we are spending too much.
After we draw down these wars, and put tax rates back where they belong, the budget will become much easier to balance, even with fewer dollars coming in due to lower/under-employment.
There is such a thing as tax rates being too low. Ask Ronald Reagan, who lowered tax rates too much and had to put them back. Ask George H. W. Bush, who needed to raise taxes.
These are not radical pot-smoking liberal thoughts. It’s called math.
Let’s also talk about social programs.
In the middle of the biggest recession in modern times, the same people who blew kisses at dropping a trillion bucks on an unnecessary war in Iraq [UNPAID FOR] wouldn’t extend unemployment benefits for the people who lost their job through no fault of their own, not from quitting or simply being lazy.
What’s the point of such a program if we stop funding it in a crisis?
That’s like having FEMA and cutting it during Hurricane Sandy.
Please explain to me, like an idiot, why cutting benefits from that program was our top priority.