Redstate

If McCain is the nominee, I hope he loses to Clinton or Obama.

I simply do not believe that McCain, who helped derail judicial nominees like Miguel Estrada and tried to defeat the Bush tax cuts to stimulate the economy and passed legislation to silence conservative activism in politics (McCain-Feingold) will suddenly, once having become president, be a conservative on the issues where he was a maverick in the Senate.

When McCain said that the Democrat judicial filibuster problem could be solved by Bush consulting more with the Democrats (even though the Democrats were in the minority), that tells me that McCain would not be nominating a Miguel Estrada or an Antonin Scalia, even though McCain says otherwise to Republican primary voters.

If we are going to have more liberals put on the federal courts, let's have a Democrat do it. At least we, the Republicans, can credibly run against the Democrats in 2010 and 2012.

If McCain wins, the Republican party will have been destroyed and will be unable and unwilling to resist liberal ideas because McCain will be the party's leader and McCain will actually agree with liberals on key issues of judical nominees, taxes and so on.

It's not a pretty picture.

That will change. It will be absolutely no problem for the D's to depress the R vote by just promoting the mans record.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

McCain is liberal on issues where conservatism is popular.

The Tax cut issue is one that has been responsible for much of the Republican party's popularity for decades. But McCain took the Ted Kennedy position on tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.

The no amnesty for illegal immigrants is another issue that is popular with the general public. But again, McCain took the liberal position on that.

On issues where the Republicans are a bit less popular, for example the Iraq war, McCain has taken the conservative position.

The result is that in a general election, McCain would get clobbered by the Democrat attack machine on issues where Republicans have a disadvantage. But McCain would not be able to effectively counterattack on issues like taxes and immigration because his views are liberal on those.

Cutting taxes is not the cornerstone of fiscal conservatism. It's a consequence of a conservative principle - small-government.

Tax structure is about who pays the bill. But it's the size of the bill that matters most.

Bush administration was not conservative when it comes to budget issues - far from it.

"Stimulus packages" are not conservative policies.

Small-government, spending cuts, not borrowing money to pay day-by-day expenses, allowing people to keep their money - those are conservative principles.

Reagan cut taxes while increasing defense spending even though there was a budget deficit. It stimulated the economy.

Similarly, George W. Bush cut taxes and stimulated the economy.

I know. McCain has admitted that he doesn't know very much about economics. If that's the case, why vote against every Republican in the US Senate except Lincoln Chafee on tax cuts?

Read these blogs from Pejman Ysefzad:

http://www.redstate.com/stories/economy/stimulus
http://www.redstate.com/stories/economy/on_economic_stimulus

And this article:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18159629

About tax cuts strengthening the economy, read this report from the Treasury Department:
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/treasurydynamicanalysisrepor...

"The analysis reveals that the long-run effects of these policies depend crucially on whether they are financed by lower spending or higher taxes in the future and are sensitive to assumptions on underlying parameters. If the tax relief is
financed by future tax increases – that is, if the aggregate amount of tax relief is temporary – then it may result in lower output in the long run."

No, I have no use for tax cuts that don't pay for themselves and I firmly believe this is THE conservative standing. Sorry if you don't agree, but this conservative believes in small-government, not in borrowing money from the unborn to improve our economic standarts.

So, if you don't support tax reduction unless they are combined with spending reduction, given that we now have a budget deficit, would you support raising tax rates?

I want to get an inside account of how a "conservative" like McCain allies himself with Ted Kennedy and Tom Daschle on the tax issue and calls it conservative.

I believe you aren't reading what I'm writing. If you want to argue that borrowing money from the unborn is a conservative principle, you shall exlpain yourself better.

If you want to disagree about the "stimulus package" effect, you shall present some arguments.

To the straw man "if you are a fiscal small-government conservative, then you want higher taxes" I won't bother to answer.

If the budget deficit is of primary importance, you would have to support higher taxes in order to avoid a budget deficit.

My opinion is that the budget deficit is less important that the growth rate of the economy, which is why reducing tax rates on economic activity is important.

Just because Bush couldn't?

I believe we can have a smaller, less expensive government.

And I know who has the best record in fighting the spending.

McCain didn't even offer, as an amendment to the Bush tax cut bills, that they be combined with reducing the rate of growth in Medicare and Social Security spending.

McCain just voted against the Bush tax cuts on the basis of Ted Kennedy's class warfare arguments.

I'm certainly in favor of cutting spending. But this idea that if were in a recession, we can't cut taxes to stimulate the economy is what the Left believes, not conservatism.

Senator Coburn, Senator Brownback, the National Taxpayers Association and even the Club for Growth - let me quote them: "Over his twenty years in the Senate, [McCain] has been at the forefront of the battle to eliminate wasteful projects and inject greater discipline and transparency into the appropriations process, often by introducing a slew of cost-cutting amendments" pledge to disagree.

Just check McCain's lifetime ratings from small-government groups.

Seriously, cordpt ... you employ this very annoying, and very dishonest tactic whenever the subject of John McCain and the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts comes up.

So, for the last time, get this and get this good; this is not about some esoteric argument on tax cuts and their effect/utility with or without spending cuts. And I'm willing to bet you very well know it. This is about John McCain and the reason why opposed those tax cuts.

McCain DID NOT oppose those tax cuts because of spending. The people who write this (like you) are either ignorant or just outright lying straight through their teeth.

He hardly ever mentioned spending when the tax cuts were being debated through the Primaries in 2000 and up until they were enacted in 2001 and 2003. He loudly and proudly opened his mouth and said he opposed them because they were "tax cuts for the rich."

We've got the cites and the quotes to prove it. He was on all the television news shows and in all the newspapers preening as they all praised him for his "maverickness."

NOTE: If you're going to refute this (and I'm sure you won't), PLEASE DO NOT cite Greg Mankiw, some economics textbook or some ahistorical version of history where the tax cuts in 1960, 1980 and 2001/2003 did not result in economic expansions.

Cite and link for us, something, anything, that proves that John McCain opposed the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts because of a lack of accompanying spending cuts. Cite something, anything, that falsifies the myriad of contemporary 2000 - 2003 McCain statements that had him employing classic Democratic class warfare rhetoric against them.

Otherwise, STFU.

level of Discourse. Abreviated cursing by the front page posters directed at the readers is a step in a direction I really hate to see Redstate go down.
BTW I would be interested in discussing the isssue with you further but your last two "words" stifle any such interest.

This guy has been using this dishonest sidetracking move every time the subject has been brought up.

I'm not apologizing for it. Sue me.

site into the direction of DailyKos that bothers me. Its not just that, Haystack's front page post of Thompson announcenment was was quite filthy in some of its content also. I have always been proud that Redstate seemed like very good clean familly friendly site. But this isn't the case when the top brass start talking going in the direction of dirty talking. Yes I know I'm a bit of a puritan and I'm not ashamed of that either. If a site is to become a respected site its going to have to be a clean site. Your post did not make the site a clean site.
I won't sue you, but what I might do is withhold my donation to the new Redstate - which would have been about 10 bucks so that would cripple any hope you have doing your upgrade :). Seriously though I will consider talking to the authorities on the site considering the some of the crumbling quality on this site.

Look, if you believe in "stimulating" the economy, through spending and/or tax cuts financed by deficit, you should read Pejman's diaries and then clearly present your disagreements. Bring some economical empirical evidence or theory to the table.

I'm stading with Hayek and Milton Friedman in this issue. You are stading with Keynes. Who's the conservative?

The Reagan tax cuts were enacted when we were running a budget deficit.

I doubt that Pejman opposed the Bush tax cuts. I also doubt that Milton Freidman opposed the Bush tax cuts.

And, you know, McCain actually campaigned with Ronald Reagan, while others were "independent during the time of Reagan/Bush".

Not all tax cuts are born equal...

Explain how the Reagan tax cut (enacted in 1981, two years before McCain became a member of Congress) is a "good" tax cut while the Bush tax enacted over McCain's and Ted Kennedy's objections in 2001 and 2003 were "bad" tax cuts?

Consider that the Reagan tax cut was enacted when we had a budget deficit and the 2001 Bush tax cut was enacted when we had a surplus.

Where was McCain's favorability numbers when he was pushing his amnesty plan? Where were his favorability numbers when he mugged for the cameras, stabbed the GOP in the back with his Gang of 14?

That is where his numbers will be if he becomes the nominee--that is your lead pipe lock of the year. Pretending otherwise won't change that.

Over 80% of Republican voters opposed his amnesty plan. And yet, McCain has never said he will never grant amnesty. His plan is now to fool enough of us long enough, make us think he has secured the borders--even if that "secure" is on paper only--then, he is going to hit us with amnesty again. That's your lead pipe lock of a McCain presidency.

McCain can not, will not be able to run on a record of conservative accomplishments--he has none. He has a record of handing victory to the left.

A McCain campaign can be boiled down to: "Ignore what I've done for the last 20 years, I've said a lot of conservative things too!"

McCain has two conservative legislative accomplishments to show for his 20+ years in Congress:

(1) Silencing conservative voices in politics by passing McCain-Feingold. Wisconsin Right to Life took McCain's legislation all the way to the US Supreme Court last year.

(2) Giving terrorists more rights by trying to outlaw waterboarding and calling for the closing of Gitmo, saying that we lost the moral high ground in the war on terror.

Okay. Giving more rights to terrorists and fewer rights to conservatives isn't exactly and good record of conservative accomplishment, but it'll have to do for now.