Redstate

if Frist would stop chewing his nails in the office and get out and help on this.  Just a handful of Senators, A Gang of of Whatever, and we would have a  bloc to be reckoned with.  True, their pictures wouldn't be featured in the Times but that's a small price to pay for virtue.

It seems like I am seeing and hearing about McCain everywhere as of late.

I've said for some time that McCain's the guy you have to back in 2008 if you want smaller government (less spending, that is, not less regulation).  Whether that's your #1 priority will determine whether it's worth some of McCain's downsides.  Like it or not, this is a big issue for him and one on which he has longstanding, hard-earned credibility.

But I'd still like to see him stake out a position for really cutting programs and not just trimming earmarks.  The Medicare boondoggle would be a good place to start.

I agree, I give McCain credit for taking this on. I wish there were some way to reign in his love for regulation, though. It is so odd because the two side seem quite opposite one another.

As for really cutting programs, I would love to see that too, believe me, but a small start at least is a start in the right direction. It may serve us well to go about this with a long term view in mind. The democrats have been using the "boiled frog" technique of expanding goverment for decades.

Perhaps its time to do the same, one step at a time, we may see less push back: make a baby step, get everyone used to it, then take another. It is a frustrating thought, to be sure, considering what long painstaking undertaking slaying the government behemoth is going to be!

<eom>

that matter, that make McCain a viable candidate for POTUS in '08.  While I abhor the spending ways of Congress, McCain's supposed desire to control them are not enough for me to support his desire to regulate everything.  In the world of "Big Government" Senators, if you define that term as government messing with areas of your life, he is king.

With respect to spending, I have no confidence that a President McCain would have any impact on Congressional appropriations.  Would he veto major spending bills and shut down the country?  I think not, that's been tried.  The only way to control spending is from within the Congress by either discipline - I know, I know - or with a rule that requires all references within a given bill to relate only to the subject of the bill.

McCain is the most dangerous politician in America.  He is very able at taking issues, parsing them in a way to glean favorable publicity and then turning out legislation that is virtually not opposable (CFR, torture).

I cannot support a politician who introduces what he calls campaign finance reform which denies Americans their First Amendment rights. His version of anti-pork legislation will probably cost us our ability to petition the government for grievances or something similar. I'm not sure why Sen. McCain wants us to have to give up rights for the Senate to do what's right.

I contributed to Tom Coburn's Senate campaign via CFG.  After reading his book, and having a general knowledge of the 1994 revolution and his part in it, I knew he was just eactly what we needed in the Senate.  A person of principle, a citizen politician, and someone who did not mind being a large pain in the butt to the status quo, if that's what is required to take a stand for one's principles.  His only black mark for me was that ne did not cast a 'no' vote on Arlen Specter's chairmanship of Judiciary.  I'll forgive him for that, in light of his subsequent work, where he's proving to be what he said he would be.

I think you're right about this being McCain's big conservative issue.  I also agree that McCain should even go further, triangulating to the right of the GOP establishment on spending overall.

I don't think it should be framed as "cutting programs" though.  My reading of the present-day American electorate is that most voters want the government to provide them with their Social Security, their Medicare, and their K-12 and higher education dollars (and, of course, to marry it all with low taxes, a balanced budget, and a partridge in a pear tree).  I think McCain should go the route that many GOP governors have gone, expressing support for the spirit of the big domestic programs while promising to restructure and reorganize them so that they'll work better and cost less.  That way, the elements of government that actually benefit most people are maintained and enhanced while the waste is gutted and the pork is flushed down the proverbial toilet, closing the deficit without a tax increase.

The Medicare bill would be an excellent place for McCain to start.  He could call for its repeal, promising to replace it with something that makes sense.  That way, he won't be read as someone who wants to "take away seniors' health care," but instead, as someone who wants to make sure seniors get more for their (and our) tax dollars while not ballooning the deficit and endangering the economy.

This strategy could also be employed by any number of other GOP presidential contenders of course, but it would be especially effective if McCain latched onto it, given his past support for fiscal prudence.

Source:

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) talks about dropping the prescription drug benefit program:

      CBS' Borger: "Senator John McCain told us today that cutting pork barrel isn't enough. Now he wants to eliminate one of the president's key accomplishmnents, a new law providing prescription drug benefits to seniors and it's not going to make the White House happy."

      McCain: "We've got to go back and look at the Medicare prescription drug bill. It was supposed to cost $400 billion. It's now up to $700 billion. We ought to cancel it. Go back to square one and get prescription drugs to the truly needy."

      Borger: "Cancel it? There are some people saying put this off for a year? But you're saying it cancel it?"

      McCain: "I'm saying it was a bad idea to start with."

      Borger: "What do you say to seniors?"

      McCain: "I'm saying we're going to come up with a simpler, easier way. Those of you who are below the poverty line, we're going to give you a piece of paper you take to your druggist and get your prescription drug. For the rest of you, we're going to work it out."

      Borger: "What does this do to Social Security reform then?"

      McCain: "I think we all know that Social Security reform is off the table right now. Look, everything's changed. We didn't anticipate around $200 billion expenditure of taxpayer dollars a month ago ("Evening News," CBS, 9/19).

moving to Oklahoma just so I can vote for Sen. Coburn.

Granted, that's only a mile and a half, so I'm not exactly giving up my firstborn, but I sure do like that man.

Sen. John McCain once told me that "the best long-term answer to corruption is a smaller government."

Was this before he discovered the that the best long-term answer to corruption was restricting freedom of speech?

Sure, he does not like other people's big spending... but if he was in charge I could see him propose huge new government programs. He is a big ideas kind of guy.

He also, at his core, thinks that government is a good tool to right wrongs with. His view on the economy as something that needs to be actively managed, the "wealth gap" as something that government needs to fix, businesspeople as robber barons that need to be watched like a hawk lest they take advantage of people, and of course CFR, are all examples of this.

On top of that, it is very hard to look at any legislator's attitudes towards spending and predict what his position will be if he were the chief executive. There is a huge difference there.

One for each paragraph!

Re: I don't think it should be framed as "cutting programs" though.  My reading of the present-day American electorate is that most voters want the government to provide them with their Social Security, their Medicare, and their K-12 and higher education dollars

Yes, the American electorate does not want entitlements cut. But the electorate would like to see a lot of little programs cut, things like the old mohair subisdy and so forth. Of course none of that will amount to more than a pittance, but it does not make for good PR, and, on a positive note, it creates a culture of pork-rejection which is all to the good even if very little real savings are gained thereby. In other words, put away the Meat Axe and instead bring out the Fine Tooth Comb and ferret out all the "Bridges To No Where" and other Golden Fleece hidden in the details, hold it up to ridicule, and whack away at it.

The ONLY thing in fact that McCain still has going for him  is that he remains a deficit hawk, but thats not really enough anymore.

"but if he was in charge I could see him propose huge new government programs. He is a big ideas kind of guy.

He also, at his core, thinks that government is a good tool to right wrongs with."

That describes President Bush quite well.  The main difference is that McCain would veto pork and he has a record to say that credibly.  President Bush doesn't seem to mind that he has expanded government faster than any President since Carter.