It is terribly discouraging for conservatives that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has kicked the can down the road with Ryan-Murray budget agreement without even a baby step towards dealing with entitlements.
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It is tragic that Obamacare is turning out worse than even conservatives expected, and is wrecking the health care arrangements of millions of Americans.
It is monstrous that Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has abolished the filibuster for most administration appointments so he and the president can cram down a bunch of radical liberals on America.
That’s what happens when the other side runs the Senate and the presidency. That’s what happens when the other side is the ruling class that owns the culture and the media and the schools. That’s what a ruling class does: it defines what is allowed to be thought, said and done.
But when things start to go wrong – like right now – then the opposition gets its chance.
For decades, conservatives have wanted to reform entitlements but the American people wouldn’t listen. They paid into the trust fund for years and they intended to get their benefits.
But if the trust fund turns out to be an accounting gimmick in the finest tradition of Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff and there is no more money, millions of crusty, old geezers will get really angry and start to demand reform.
For decades, conservatives have wanted to reform health insurance to reduce the problem of third parties paying for routine health care. But liberals have always had the bigger megaphone and there’s always been a Ted Kennedy or a Barack Obama to ram a bit more government health care down our throats.
But when the careful health care arrangements of millions of women are tossed in the garbage, millions of women get angry, and the gender gap snaps shut like a dowager’s fan.
Same with schools, same with wind farms, same with fatty foods, same with toilets and light bulbs. You have to have a disaster before you can turn things around.
So the bad news is really good news, because the American people will be ready to listen to us.
We can tell the American people that big government is always and everywhere a cesspool of corruption and insider dealing. It’s always hopelessly inefficient and incompetent too. Charles Dickens was writing 150 years ago about the government’s Circumlocution Office and its motto: “how not to do it.”
We can tell the American people that we can give them back the health plan they want. And interstate insurance markets, and transparent pricing.
We can tell the American people that global warming is a crock, and that justice demands low energy prices.
And they will listen because the liberal ideas didn’t work.
There is one other thing we have to work on in the next ten years while Americans are skeptical about government. We must bust up the government education system and make sure that most kids are homeschooled or attend private schools with vouchers. Government schools mean government propaganda directed at our children; it means the other side – and the other side’s kids – are socializing our children.
And we’ve got to get up every day ready to evangelize for limited government, free markets, individualism and responsibility, freedom of religion, marriage and children.
But Speaker Boehner: couldn’t you have just chuckled at the tea-party groups this week instead of sneering at them? What would it have cost you?