As a vote looms on a bare-bones budget that would slash education and threaten nursing homes with closure, House GOP leaders softened their rhetoric on Tuesday to emphasize that it is a starting point and that cuts could be eased later without raising taxes.
I'll say this. Whoever is in charge of the GOP's noise machine should be fired. There are good arguments for entitlement cuts that need to be made to the general public, but you don't ever see them in the media or coming from the GOP.
Do I blame the media for this? Not really, because they're basically Statist types who can find a Government non-solution to almost any problem, real or imagined.
Do I blame the Democrats? No again. I have a big enough problem with Democrats not being honest about their policy platform. Tax & spend is OK, just be honest about it.
Nope, I put all of the blame on Republicans.
IF (and that's a pretty big if) you believe in the "cut government" mantra then you need to make the case for it. If not through the old MSM outlets then through the new media alternatives out there for use. Information dissemination is hard work. Work I've not seen the GOP willing to do.
Their failure to do so is either because....
A. They don't really believe in cutting the budget. (There's ample evidence that this is the case. NO ONE can increase spending and cut revenues at the same time like Republicans)
Or....
B. They just suck at getting their message out. (There's ample evidence for this as well. NO ONE can bungle a message like the State GOP.)
Of course, then there's the problem that many in the GOP's base (the Tea Party for example) haven't thought all of this through. The funniest sign of this political season was "Keep your Government out of my Medicare!" Cutting entitlements means that some people, those incapable of planning their own retirement etc.) are GOING to suffer. That's a pretty hard electoral road to hoe. Now, if you phased it out and went back to teaching personal finance to the younger generation you might be onto something. Well...the College students wouldn't think so but hey.
The only other option is to raise taxes somewhere around 10-15% for all taxpayers with no deductions. Which isn't a winning strategy either. Which probably explains why the Democrats aren't honest about what they really want to do. To be fair, it's probably why the GOP isn't either. The end result is that nothing really changes, nothing gets fixed, and overheated rhetoric continues unabated.
About the only group happy about this are political consultants, who make a mint on attack ads.
Back to the Texas budget. If anything this is going to prove that Republicans and Democrats aren't all that different. Both are relying on an awful lot of Hope, without much spare change.
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