Since the rise of Ronald Reagan, the GOP has been the party of fantasy. It has pushed for smaller government, arguing that this will free Americans from tyranny. Extolling the virtues of the Founding Fathers, Reagan and his successors (including the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney) have sold Americans on the myth that you can have everything: tax cuts and public services, guns and butter. Libertarians now own the GOP, and while they cannot win elections under their own banner (see Ed Clark - David H. Koch of Koch Industries ticket, 1980; Ron Paul for President, 2008) they have managed a complete take-over of the Grand Old Party.
Reagan and his acolytes pushed a program that has come to be known as "starving the beast". In the words of the anti-tax conservative zealot Grover Norquist, the goal is to make government small enough that it can be "drowned in a bath tub". Norquist, forever tainted by his association with the felon Jack Abramoff, continues to hold his weekly meetings for conservative players in D.C., where they hatch their plans to "take back America". (more on Norquist in a future post). Somehow they have convinced many Americans to ignore the folly of 96 months of Bush-Cheney policies. All that is wrong with America is the result of 18 months of Obama-Biden.
So what about those 96 months of "starving the beast". The surplus is long gone, the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and the military became the most successful jobs program in the nation. I like Frank Rich's take on this, as published in the New York Times today.
Instead of Starving the beast that is government, those 96 months have starved many American people out of their jobs, their livelyhoods, and their homes. Everyone is quick to blame Barry, but the mess would not be here if the 2000 election were never handed to Bush/Cheney.America lost it's soul under their power, and I fear that we will never get it back.
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