Potomac Fever: Reagan's children

Thursday, October 1, 2009

evan said...: Plug: Ruy Teixeira works at CAP.

Analysis: Republicans cannot be against social welfare in general if they hope to make inroads with two groups of people who have carried recent Democratic majorities: well-educated voters and minority voters.

Republicans, if they knew what was good for them, would angle for--for instance--a voucher-based system for insurance. That would also include a new tax to pay for it. Which brings me to another point: the Republican focus on cutting government spending to balance the budget isn't going to work in the long term. Taxes need to go up, along with a cut in government spending. The Republican party should stake out what's currently positioned as "moderate" in the American system and let the Democrats shift to the left.

If we're lucky, that'll bring us in line with the rest of the world; our Democrats would be almost hyper-conservative by European standards.; October 1, 2009 at 2:35 PM
evan said...: Whoops: meant to say at the end that our democrats are considered hyper-conservative today. If the Democrats get pushed left, we'll have a real left and a sane right competing for reasonable answers to policy problems.; October 1, 2009 at 2:36 PM