As reported by JoeForAmerica two days ago, Sen. John McCain’s Phoenix/Maricopa County, Arizona base of precinct committeemen had had enough of such defamation that they chose to censure their own senior senator by a 77% vote. And of course we all remember the first words out of Speaker John Boehner’s mouth after tea partier conservatives returned the GOP to control of the House on promises to oppose Obamacare:
“We are only one-half of one-third of the government.”
Never mind that they own 100% of the purse strings required to fund Obamacare.
Enter his and other establishment, ruling class, moderate (given that a majority of elected Republicans in D.C. vote with Boehner et al, we do not consider them RINOs) Republican defenders, two self-described compassionate conservatives that served in the NCLB and Medicare Rx-drug administration of President George W. Bush have unleashed at an ad hominem attack against conservatives, disguised as a scholarly “Conservative Vision of Government”, that includes not one quote from any self-identified tea partier or conservative to justify the claim that we are “anti-government” or oppose reasonable government regulation or a safety net for the truly needy.
Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, in part:
The administration’s federal power grabs have hardly gone unopposed, of course. Channeling public alarm, particularly regarding the stimulus and health-care legislation, the Republican Party scored a historic victory in the 2010 mid-term elections. Since then, the Republican-controlled House has sought to restrain and re-limit government, including championing key reforms to Medicare. And Republican lawmakers have provided an effective counterweight to presidential overreach — significantly restraining spending since 2011 and preventing further leftward legislative leaps.
Republicans have argued that unrestrained spending, and particularly unreformed entitlements, will burden the nation with unmanageable levels of debt in the coming decades and starve the budget of funds for other essential purposes. They further contend that a large, meddlesome, intrusive state not only undermines the private economy but also crowds out civil society and enervates civic character.
They have therefore been fairly clear, and quite emphatic, about what they believe the government should not be doing. But if it is true, as they have argued, that the Democrats’ vision is a travesty of American government, then what is the proper and appropriate extent and purpose of that government?
Conservatives in recent years have not done enough to answer this question, and as a result have offered voters an oppositional view of government that, while perhaps stoking worry and resentment, is insufficient to build public trust in the prospect of a conservative government. And such a negative approach to the question of the role of government is not only electorally insufficient — it is unbecoming of conservatism and of the deep commitment that conservatives claim to the nation’s founding ideals. [Emphasis added]
They drone on this way for nine pagesm but never do they justify their false claims against conservatives nor provide any actual alternatives to what Boehner’s House, McConnell’s Senate and Obama’s Democrats have wrought. Never do they mention that that Obama as “unopposed” means only that the Speaker made speeches in opposition but never used the constitutional power of the House to relive Americans from the suffering caused by Obamanomics and Obamacare. Rather, they attempt to brand tea partiers as anarchists and themselves as consistent with the Founding Fathers and framers of the U.S. Constitution, without any persuasive evidence. Moreover, those esoteric arguments miss the main point: Big government as it has evolved and is today reduces liberty, wealth creation, economic prosperity and runs up dangerous levels of debt, to which the Gersons, Wehners and Boehners have no antidote they are willing to risk uttering in Washington, D.C.
Without success in our view. One of our main observations of moderate-fiscal conservatives over the past 10-15 years has been a decided lack of any specific plan to get us to a smaller federal government, much less any plan for transition to wean Americans off gargantuan-Welfare-State-addiction. Instead, it has been conservatives like Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) that do so.
Nowhere do you find prominent and large numbers of tea partiers or other conservatives argue for elimination of Medicare, Social Security or even Food Stamps. We do argue for reform, and in much more specificity than moderates. Moreover, unlike House budget chair Paul Ryan’s supposed draconian proposal before the 2012 campaign, other more conservative proposals actually make a real dent in entitlement spending that threatens a prosperous American future.
That conservatives can’t read a 9-page “vision” every time they oppose Obama with the appropriate “no” to his government power expansions, is no evidence of how Gerson and Wehner seek to elevate themselves and their timid branch of too-satisfied-Republicans by libeling tea partiers as against any government relief for the poor and middle class.
Let Gerson and Wehner propose actual significant reforms and they will find themselves libeled by the Democrats as bigots that don’t care about the old, young, disabled and the poor. It is unbecoming of them, while eating peanuts on the sidelines during the government shutdown for example, to so slander conservatives that dare to engage liberal Democrats in the arena.
An answer to Boehner et al:
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
