The 2009 Liberal Scorecard

One of the problems conservatives face in the coming election is that the electorate is largely uninterested in lengthy explanations detailing the nation or state’s current problems. The general populace is much happier with short sound bytes rather than the details. This is one of the areas the American left has mastered. They have for years been able to articulate their talking points in attractive ways that sound good. Conservatives find themselves in the difficult position of going through detail-oriented explanations to counter very vulnerable arguments from their liberal counterparts. A glossy, polished speech that is low on details trumps the less dynamic speech rich with substance. It is a sad fact of contemporary American politics.

If one were to transcribe the liberal demagoguery to golf, liberals would not keep score in a tournament, but would decide on a winner by who hit the coolest shots, who was best dressed, or who was the most charismatic during the round.

The conservative keeps score. On a federal and state level, this has been a disastrous six months. Here are the scores that the conservative can use to prove his or her point.

Federal:
1) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Remember when the new administration promised transparency? There were earmarks upon earmarks in the bill ranging from additional funding for STD prevention (as if people don’t know where babies come from or how gonorrhea is spread) to $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (because that will put people right to work). This bill along with the Obama budget also increased federal deficit spending from 3% to 12-13% according to the Congressional Budget Office.
2) Gitmo is still open. Didn’t General O. promise to close it? Even many Democrats saw the peril in doing this and blocked this from happening.
3) Nancy Pelosi vs. the CIA. Yeah, she lied…and then disappeared to China. Nothing to see here…carry on! After all, people will forget that she knew about the waterboarding and then lied about knowing it despite ripping Big Bad Bush for waterboarding terror suspects.





4) Cap and Trade. Gee, here’s an idea…how about we try to lower the global temperature by ourselves by imposing higher taxes on manufacturers and energy producers? No, no…they won’t choose to manufacture in China instead. China and India are not bound by Kyoto, so there is no way that American companies would look to lower costs by outsourcing to China. Nah. Silly conservatives…the United States can easily cool the earth down from its fever on its own…stick it those Big Bad Oil Companies! Just because heating and cooling homes is going to be exponentially more expensive under this plan doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do something to combat a problem that has not been proven to even exits. But don’t take the evil conservatives’ word for it, take The One’s word for it…





5) The AIG tax. Who would have known that the person who introduced language into the stimulus allowing AIG to award bonuses was a Democrat at the blessing of the tax cheat Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner? Remember how angry those guys were at AIG and how they proposed a 95% tax on them? It was as if they did not know about it beforehand…they act well.
6) Nationalization of GM. But wait, Chairman, I mean, President Obama does not want to run GM, but will tell them to keep their headquarters in Detroit. How is the government taking over the nation’s largest auto company not socialism?
7) Proposal of nationalized healthcare. Wow! Free healthcare! Sounds good, right? It does…until the taxpayers get stuck with the bill, patients are excluded from planning their own medical care, and all profit-driven incentive is removed from pharmaceutical companies and health care professionals to practice any kind of innovative experimentation…
8) Iraq. Wasn’t General Barry going to cut and run? U.S. troops are still in Iraq. Maybe Bush wasn’t so crazy…
9) Oh, there’s more (disarmament when North Korea is testing nuclear missiles, sitting and watching instead of taking any stand on Iran, surging the military in Afghanistan when the Taliban is running amok in Pakistan, apologizing to the Arabs and Europeans about American arrogance…), but for the sake of sparing the details, this will have to do.

State:
1) The Wisconsin State Budget. Jim Doyle signed a budget that increased the garbage tax, eliminated the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) for public educators, released “non-violent” felons early, provided in-state tuition to illegal immigrants (don’t worry, they can’t get drivers licenses), extended domestic partners of state workers to be eligible for the state insurance plan (not just the gay ones, either), increased fees on cell phones, established a new income tax bracket, lowered the enrollment cap on school choice, increased the hospital tax four months after it was implemented, increased the cigarette tax, increased the capital gains tax, etc. The Joint Finance Committee (composed by a 12-2 Democratic majority) inserted many provisions behind closed doors in the middle of the night and the budget passed the Senate and Assembly before the “little people” (a.k.a. the public) even became aware of it. Remember when Jim Doyle promised not to raise taxes?
2) State smoking ban. Remember when if someone did not like a restaurant or bar, he or she would go to a different one? That was not good enough for the state legislature or the governor. Apparently, private restaurants and bars cannot decide for themselves whether or not to allow smoking.

This is only a partial scorecard. The Obama Administration has been in power for not even six months and look what is happening.

The problem the conservative faces is presenting the disastrous public policy decisions above to a populace that gives Obama a 60% approval rating while the Congress (run by the Democrats) has an approval rating in the 30s. This is a populace that has 40% of people that believe that the government has its own money (that is not paid for by the public).

But then, Obama and his teleprompter sure give good speeches. It is really a shame about those pesky little conservatives busting apart his platitudes and fluff with facts and figures.

Ryan's Voting Record Shows Inconsistencies

Paul Ryan has been representing Wisconsin’s first congressional district since his election to the House of Representatives on November 3, 1998. Since then, he has championed fiscal conservatism by emphasizing the need for limited government, limited spending, tax cuts, and limited regulation over American trade. He is currently the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee and has been an eloquent voice in favor of what he has coined as his “Roadmap for America’s Future.”

He is young and is considered by many to be one of the brightest stars in the Republican Party that has taken severe beatings in the last two election cycles – losing control of the House and the Senate in 2006 and then sustaining further losses in both houses of Congress as well as losing the White House in 2008. Many of the established names of the Republican Party have become more moderate over time, much to the frustration of the conservative base, but several younger politicians have emerged to reestablish conservatism into the Republican Party. Ryan has gained much notoriety since his party’s debacles of 2006 and 2008. He frequently is seen on CNBC and has had editorials published numerous times in the Wall Street Journal.

It may come as a surprise to several conservatives that Ryan appears to have moderated his fiscal conservatism. Starting in September of 2008, Ryan voted in favor of the first bailout to the tune of $700 billion to rescue AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, and several other lending institutions that were in danger of going bankrupt. He then voted in favor of the $14 billion bailout in December of 2008. Some speculated that this was due to troubles within his constituency where there happens to be a major GM manufacturing plant in Janesville. Finally, on March 18 of this year, Ryan voted in favor of H.R. 1586: a 90% tax levied on the bonuses awarded to AIG executives. AIG had received TARP money in the original bailout of the previous fall. This bill has since been shelved in the Senate.

Ryan represents a very diverse district where it is likely that the automakers had some pull on his decision for the so-called “Big 3 Bailout.” Ryan also stated publicly that the TARP vote was going to hurt him politically and that it went against his own political and fiscal principles. He followed that by saying that if something was not done, the economy may suffer dire consequences. Ryan was quoted as saying “It sucks, but it has to pass…The easiest thing would be to vote no and go hide in my office and watch the markets collapse. I will suffer politically for this, but I will sleep at night.” With regard to his most recent surprising vote, only one member of his home state’s delegation had voted against the AIG tax. James Sensenbrenner voted against it saying it was unconstitutional and would be thrown out in court.

Paul Ryan spoke to a rally in Madison on April 15 and indicated that the Democrats just “want you to pay up and shut up” and said the Democrats’ view of the American public’s duty is “to pay more and more taxes, because our government is smarter than you are.” His voting record has been very conservative as well save the three major exceptions of the past year. This would make him far from being what many conservatives refer to as a Republican in Name Only (RINO). The question of whether or not this will come back to undermine Ryan’s credibility as a fiscal conservative remains unknown, but is a worthy question.