With its multi-trillion dollar subsidy to the financial community, the Democratic Party has become the party of the super-rich. The Democrats complained (and rightly so) for eight Bush years about subsidies to Halliburton, but from the moment that they took control a year ago their chief achievement has been to hand massive amounts of public money to Wall Street.
The magnitude of their subsidy is greater than any previous subsidy to wealthy interests in American history. Rockefeller and his bribes for oil rights of way; Jay Gould and the railroads; the S&L bailout of the late 1980s; Halliburton in Iraq, all were small change compared to the Democrats’ subsidization of the banking industry and Wall Street.
The multi-trillion dollar transfer to Wall and Broad was facilitated by the Democratic media’s bamboozling the public with a single word: “Depression!” But it’s not so clear that people will continue to believe them as they did in the 1930s. A small amount of public education will go a long way.
Households are faced with increasing property taxes and other costs, but are being told that there’s deflation. Their wages have not grown, but government spending and taxes are rising, and they can see that something’s out of whack. Moreover, the Democrats have gotten sloppy and there is now increasing transparency. The old lies about cost-push inflation and how complicated it all is have been brushed aside. Their lies have become sillier and more difficult to defend.
This would seem to open up considerable opportunity for Liberty Republicans. But there is a difficult obstacle: the Republican Party is still dominated by the Roosevelt-Rockefeller-Bush Progressives, and they are not going away.
New York’s Ulster County Republican Committee, to which I belong, hosted a dinner this past Thursday that featured a speech by Rudy Giuliani. In his speech, Mr. Giuliani made clear that he supported the bailout. His claim that he is in favor of less spending and lower taxes sounds tired and unconvincing after he served for eight years in New York City. During his term the massive waste in City Hall was not in the least remedied. Now he speaks in favor of the bailout. He seems irrelevant.
Moreover, I chatted with my State Senator, John J. Bonacic (R-NY), and he said that he supports George Pataki for US Senator. George Pataki? Mr. Tax-and-Spend who ended up kowtowing to Dennis Rivera, the head of the hospital workers’ union? Bonacic’s a great guy, but come on!
There is a big opportunity for the RLC. The Progressive Republican leadership is bereft of ideas. They are tired. They are irrelevant. The public is ready to explode over the Democrats, the party of greed. They see themselves getting poorer. They know they’re being lied to.
The Liberty Republicans have innovative solutions. But we are faced with a critical strategic question: how do we overcome the GOP Progressives? It will require very fancy footwork in places like New York, where the Republicans are to the left of the Democrats. The next two years are the years to do it. We must out-maneuver McCain and come up with viable candidates. The opportunity is too big to miss.
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