What Conservatives Should Do: Part 2
On the heels of Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts, the Republican party has reached its own crossroads. The TEA Party movement is in the process of co-opting the entire Republican party establishment and restoring its conservative, founding principles. This is very good news, but the work isn't finished.
The Republican party must prove its fidelity to its own founding principles by starting to make the argument to roll back the administrative state in responsible fashion. It is not enough to mouth platitudes about ending the welfare state in order to win elections. The Republican party must unite behind a natural promulgator of conservative principles who calls for a commission to determine the best, most responsible way(s) to privatize Medicare and Social Security. I nominate Mike Pence.
Representative Pence gets it. Very little more needs to be said to people who follow Mike Pence, but for those who don't I encourage you to read his speeches and look at his voting record. Both are conservative to the core. But Pence also bridges the gap between the TEA Party movement and the Republican establishment. He is loved by both. He is a key to co-opting the Republican party establishment at the highest levels of government. Think of Pence as the anti-Mitch McConnell who, with all due respect for his brilliant efforts to stymie the Obamatons, is not a movement conservative. He is a big-government Republican.
Barack Obama made cutting Medicare a centerpiece of his plan to socialize American medicine. The move is necessary to return our government to its proper constitutional place, but not for the reasons Obama believes. Medicare is on the cusp of bankruptcy. Our entitlement programs run deep into the red, unfunded liabilities that reach into the hundreds of TRILLIONS of dollars. It's simply unsustainable. So cutting Medicare is necessary, but cutting Medicare to create a new, unsustainable entitlement program is not only unnecessary it is immoral, for it pushes our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren further into indentured servitude.
Crafting a non-partisan, America-first plan to spin down Medicare along with a responsible path to reinjecting America's seniors into the private health insurance market would reap huge rewards for the republic. Mike Pence is a natural leader of this effort should he choose to accept the responsibility of explaining how, and why, we must meet this test of real leadership. It is simply not enough to talk about ways to meet our obligations to our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents in order to simply win elections. The balance sheet tells the hard truth that those massively unfunded obligations come at great expense to those previously mentioned children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I know of no parent who wouldn't suffer now in order to spare their children from unspeakable pain years hence. So let's begin suffering now in order to spare our children.
Let's end Medicare now. Responsibly.
The Republican party must prove its fidelity to its own founding principles by starting to make the argument to roll back the administrative state in responsible fashion. It is not enough to mouth platitudes about ending the welfare state in order to win elections. The Republican party must unite behind a natural promulgator of conservative principles who calls for a commission to determine the best, most responsible way(s) to privatize Medicare and Social Security. I nominate Mike Pence.
Representative Pence gets it. Very little more needs to be said to people who follow Mike Pence, but for those who don't I encourage you to read his speeches and look at his voting record. Both are conservative to the core. But Pence also bridges the gap between the TEA Party movement and the Republican establishment. He is loved by both. He is a key to co-opting the Republican party establishment at the highest levels of government. Think of Pence as the anti-Mitch McConnell who, with all due respect for his brilliant efforts to stymie the Obamatons, is not a movement conservative. He is a big-government Republican.
Barack Obama made cutting Medicare a centerpiece of his plan to socialize American medicine. The move is necessary to return our government to its proper constitutional place, but not for the reasons Obama believes. Medicare is on the cusp of bankruptcy. Our entitlement programs run deep into the red, unfunded liabilities that reach into the hundreds of TRILLIONS of dollars. It's simply unsustainable. So cutting Medicare is necessary, but cutting Medicare to create a new, unsustainable entitlement program is not only unnecessary it is immoral, for it pushes our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren further into indentured servitude.
Crafting a non-partisan, America-first plan to spin down Medicare along with a responsible path to reinjecting America's seniors into the private health insurance market would reap huge rewards for the republic. Mike Pence is a natural leader of this effort should he choose to accept the responsibility of explaining how, and why, we must meet this test of real leadership. It is simply not enough to talk about ways to meet our obligations to our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents in order to simply win elections. The balance sheet tells the hard truth that those massively unfunded obligations come at great expense to those previously mentioned children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I know of no parent who wouldn't suffer now in order to spare their children from unspeakable pain years hence. So let's begin suffering now in order to spare our children.
Let's end Medicare now. Responsibly.
posted by The Rock | 1:28 PM
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