Redstate

The RSC has been wonderful.  I'd like to point out that there is talk of a Senate RSC counterpart.

Also, I would like to get out in front of the Pence for Majority Leader movement.  It's time to shake-up the House Leadership and no one has shown conservative leadership (defined as standing up to your OWN party's pork and liberalism) like Congressman Pence.

what does RSC stand for?

There are no stupid questions

is not cutting spending...and increases federal control...$200 billion gets promised to NO and Nagin lays off the public employees wtf?...

This:

Blackburn introduced three across the board spending reduction bills on September 27th. H.R. 3903, 3904, and 3906 would make one, two, and five percent reductions respectively in non-defense, non-homeland security discretionary spending.

?

There's a link up top in the story.

If you are ready to 'throw the President overboard', you need to rethink a lot of issues.

I am tired of the "I am conservative but I dislike/hate/am disappointed in the President"

It is time for that to be over.

We either hang together and get the agenda going forward, and express some appreciation and excercise some loyalty, or we will all most assuredly hang seperately.

If you think the dem/lefties are going to come all nice and mild if we fal apart and lose our nerve and the elections, you are somking something that is assuredly illegal.

Wake the heck up.

The dems will ram McCain-Feingold right up into the blogosphere, reintroduce the 'fairness' doctrine, and use the IRS to audit every conservative avaialble....and make sure ballot fraud is safe for dems for decades to come.

Not to mention take taxes back to pre-Reagan days.

Shake this off, and stop acting like New Orleans evacuees.

Please.

How about you don't dicatate to me what is and what is not important, and when a politician has or has not used up all of my trust, hmm?

The dems will ram McCain-Feingold right up into the blogosphere, reintroduce the 'fairness' doctrine, and use the IRS to audit every conservative avaialble....and make sure ballot fraud is safe for dems for decades to come.

1992-1994 wasn't THAT bad. Yeah, I wasn't crazy about Washington, but oddly enough, my life went on pretty much like it did from 2000-2002. Really, I aguably had LESS heartburn from 1992-1994, because I saw it coming.

I wrote a bit about a WashPost Mike Pence profile here at RedState.  I was interested in the new media angle.

Read for content.

I am making suggestions.

Just because you may not like them, that still does not make me a dictator.

As for your masochistic tendencies, there are places  you can get them fulfilled that do not involve the future of the nation.

The conservative movement's desire for glorious defeat is one of the oddest aspects of our movement.

for me, I will take imperfect victory over perfect defeat anyday.

stop trashing someone we don't know, nominated by someone whose other nominations have been stellar. We don't need to know her. We hired Bush to know. And to get to put your own lawyer on the court. This is foolproof if one cares about actually setting the law straight. And all this top 10 law school ivy league bilge. I beat those boys in court like a drum. There are some ideas that are so bad that only tenured ivy leaggue professors can come up with them! Like the libs on the court now.

But Hunter, don't cross that dictator line!, I suggest. Wouldn't want to dictate.

Writing for content, I'll do that.

I am tired of the "I am conservative but I dislike/hate/am disappointed in the President"

It is time for that to be over.

As soon as he stops disappointing me, it will be over. But not because you tell me that it's over.

We either hang together and get the agenda going forward, and express some appreciation and excercise some loyalty,

Yeah, because hanging together has REALLY advanced the agenda thus far - we've gotten tax cuts and... um... and... Social Security reform - no, wait... um... school vouchers - no, wait... a balanced budget - no, wait... the largest entitlement program in two generations? Yep. An unconstitutional encroachment on free speech? Yep. A complete abandonment of federalism as an ideal? Yep. That agenda is moving along splendidly.

In the case of the RSC, it is. In the case of the President, not so much.

you are somking something that is assuredly illegal.

Wake the heck up.

What am I reading for content, again?

The dems will ram McCain-Feingold right up into the blogosphere,

I only bring this up to remind you what party the first of those two names claims, and the party of the President who signed it.

reintroduce the 'fairness' doctrine

You mean I won't be able to listen to Sean Hannity anymore? If I'm not defending the President, remind me why that's a negative?

and use the IRS to audit every conservative avaialble

I have a good accountant, and don't make any money anyway.

....and make sure ballot fraud is safe for dems for decades to come.

Which will, again, hurt the advancement of the "agenda." Got it.

Shake this off, and stop acting like New Orleans evacuees.

Please.

Responding to content. Yes, sir.

I have to say I've thought of that myself.  NOW is the perfect time to regain control of the Republican Party.

First with the "Victory at All Costs" and now with this post; I get the fact that you want to see the GOP move in a different direction.  Your mouth whispers Republican but your eyes say Libertarian.  I can dig that.

I think Hunter has a point when he stresses unity.  It's a matter of emphasis.  It's fine to call for a new direction; but why do you need to keep bringing up the fact that the White House has lost its way?

As a lib-dem, I agree that with folks like Hackett going after Dewine (esp. after the implosion of the GOP in Ohio, and all this weirdness surrounding DeLay, Frist, SCOTUS and the war).  It's only a matter of time before these guys start shooting off their mouths, calling GWB a chickenhawk SOB (again).

Now is not the time to risk ankle injury jumping off the bandwagon.  Give Newt time to find a surrogate for his new agenda.  Remember the glass is half-full.

if you value a fiscal agenda over a religious conservative agenda.  Those of us with Libertarian leanings and tight fiscal desires are getting zippo from this White House/Congress.

I'd rather have slick willie's balanced budget and higher taxes than a continuous bleeding of my future income via inflation or higher taxes down the road.   And don't kid yourself, one or the other is coming.  At least with his budget, tempered by a republican congress, we knew the size of the bill each year and could fight to minimize stupid spending item by item.

Instead, with borrow and spend, we never say no to anyone.  Bush+Delay+Lott/Frist compare pretty unfavorably to LBJ and his Dem drunken sailors.

have a 401(k)? If yes, why?

but I think your question is why don't I cash it in and pay the taxes.

1.  too young to avoid the extra 10% tax
   
   
2.  If I don't need the money, I can give all of it to my alma mater instead of 75% of it.
   
   
3.  Even with higher taxes down the road, there is likely to be a lower bracket into which I can bleed off it.
   
4. Sanity might return.  It's not like the extra 3% on the top bracket was enough to radically change anyone who was paying it's life anyway.

my point was, 401(k) defers taxes, if that's a good thing personally, why are you so worried about us doing so collectively (assuming that they invest it in things that will earn a higher return)?

Lord help me, I'm Nick Danger.

assuming that they invest it in things that will earn a higher return

care to really dig into this one with our federal government????????

This is just a cover for those that don't really want to pay for the goodies they get today and hope they can spend all they have and die before the bill comes due.  These same folks generally want to preserve the "american way of life" for their grandkids too......just as long as it doesn't cost anything.  Fundamentally dishonest.

this bizarre equation amounts to a credit card being the same thing as a savings account....

reminds me of a guy I used to work with.  He made about $500K a year in year -3 dropping rapidly to say $250K by the time I knew him.  He kept right on spending at the same rate by kicking his tax bill down the road, racing his Ferrari's on credit card spending, flying to see his mistress first class etc etc.  Didn't end well....

As those who refuse to see.

Good luck,

A 401K defers taxes and earns interest while doing so. This is not even a remotely good comparison for the current "borrow and spend" approach to the federal budget since we are deferring taxes while incurring, not earning, interest payments in the future.

There are some of us out here who are socially conservative and fiscally conservative.  We have it worse than you libertarians.  The president is moving forward with your liberal social agenda.  Social conservatives have nothing to hang their hat on.  This president is a disaster.

These folks are doing great work on an issue that is not only good for the country but also good for Republicans, because it is one issue that most Republicans should be able to unite behind.  I, for example, have some pretty serious differences with Mike Pence (R-IN 6th Dist.), but I'm grateful of his stand on fiscal discipline.  I'm proud of his, John Shadegg's, and Marsha Blackburn's leadership.

Republicans need to return to their roots:  small government, fiscal disclipline, and the careful weighing of act and consequence.  They need to get back to being the adults in the room.  (And stop screaming about Harriet Miers in the meantime:  caution is warranted, but it's too early to declare defeat.)

I know that as a FisCon I'm utterly disgusted with what's been happening but I assumed that at least you SoCons were getting what you wanted.

If neither of us has, just exactly who has benefitted from this Administration?

And please don't tell me tax cuts.  I'm in the top (or next to top) bracket and got maybe several grand in tax relief; but since all my income is earned income my tax cut to income ratio is peanuts compared to the tax cut to income ratio of my clients with little or no earned income and huge amounts of unearned income from dividends and capital gains, tax-free munis etc.  And with the budget crunch at the state and local levels, I've given a bunch of that back in the form of higher state and local taxes.

YOu are a voice of reason during a season of unreason.

I hope the weather changes and soon.

You have not been able to make any case that you are right because you are wrong. If you choose to consider black is white or the opposite, so be it.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe Mr. DeLay would still claim to be conservative.  At one point in his congressional career he carried the ball on the conservative front.  My how leadership corrupts!

Having a conservative in leadership would be wonderful, namely Mr. Pence, but I believe it's impossible to do so without a leadership revolution.

Pence for Majority Leader is ineffective if that's the only campaign for leadership that conservatives are willing to wage.  Gaining one leadership position does nothing more than render the Republican majority as ineffective as the minority thanks to in-fighting and a disjointed message.

I must say that I expect social conservatives will look back on Bush as a standard bearer.

I find it highly unlikely that the next President will endorse the FMA, threaten to veto bipartisan stem cell research, rhetorically support intelligent design, and allow something like the Schiavo fiasco to make its way to the federal level.

You may not be happy with the overall record, but I'm guessing you will never be happy in that case.  And you'd be worse off with a President Kerry.

Fiscal conservatives might have actually benefited from the split Pres/Congress.  It could have kept some of the pork in check.

To, you know, anything I said.

What's so bad about paying higher taxes at the state and local level than you may have in the past?

Personally, I like all my taxes to be, and stay, very low.  In my experience in working for various governmental bureaucracies, there are plenty of things that can and should be cut before even one penny is raised in extra taxes.

But you seem to be objecting to the Bush tax cuts which reduce the ability of the Federal Government to be as large as it could be (at least that's the theory before the President decided he couldn't veto a spending bill and Congress decided that it couldn't ever actually cut any spending, but I digress).  Yet you also complain that the State and local governments are taking more of your money in the form of tax hikes because of the 'budget crunch' that so many states claim to face.  (The reality of such notwithstanding.)

Why is it so objectionable to you to have the closest form of government, the one that provides you with the most direct of services (and doesn't send money to other states) be the best place to hold government accountable?  If they are raising taxes so much, maybe their spending is wastfeul, maybe their programs are frivilous, maybe their priorities are wrong.  But you can vote for your city council, you can vote for your state legislature, you can vote for governor.  And they are, conceptually, much closer to you and more responsive to you than some obscure legislators in Washington, D.C.

But I see faulty logic in complaining that the Bush tax cuts are frivilous and you don't need the money while simultaneously complaining that the state and local governments are raising their taxes to make up for some mythical shortfall.  If the tax burden you face is essentially the same, why do you care where it goes (whether to the state capitol or Washington, D.C.)?  

If the tax burden is higher than in the past, can't one argue that you are actually paying more directly for the policies that your state prefers?  Why should we spread that burden across the states?

I may very well prefer paying local taxes to federal taxes on the theory that I have more control (tho I am not sure that that is true).

Rather my point was that the net effect of the Bush tax cuts to me wasn't as great as I thought it would be (or as it is sometimes represented to be be) due to the increased local taxes.  To me what matters are total taxes.