Unready For Government

ELEPHANTIsharaSKodikara:AFP:Getty

The American Spectator hosts a symposium on whether the right has learned its lesson from the Bush years. Mercifully, a few see that it hasn't. James Antle III:

Is the Republican party ready to regain power? Probably not -- we have seen that how Republicans behave in the minority, especially under a Democratic president, is no predictor of how they will act in the majority. As steadfast as they have been against President Obama, relatively few Republicans who voted for the TARP bailout, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, or our exercise in Mesopotamian nation-building have repented.

Antle still prefers them to Democrats, though. Phil Klein:

During their time in the wilderness, Republicans have not convincingly demonstrated that they are serious about getting the federal budget under control. Sure, Republicans talk a big game about President Obama's expansion of government and the record deficits being accrued under his watch. But this is mostly political theater. The focus is typically either on opposing spending in vague terms or highlighting earmarks that, while certainly wasteful, do not compose a significant portion of the budget. The only way to get serious about spending is to confront the looming entitlement crisis, which represents $108 trillion in long-term debt, putting our nation on track for a Greek-style financial meltdown. Yet Republicans, despite portraying themselves as champions of limited government, have not demonstrated any more willingness to confront this problem than Democrats. And let us not forget that when Republicans were last in the majority, they used their power to ram through what was at the time the largest expansion of entitlements since the Great Society in the form of the Medicare prescription drug plan...

Entitlement spending will burden future generations with more debt, crushing tax rates, a stagnant economy, and runaway inflation.

The GOP has made the war on America's youth a bipartisan affair. The party is not ready to retake the majority.

(Photo: Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP/Getty.)

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