Hey Republicans, A Few Tax Cuts Ain’t Gonna Cut It

Our man in Venezuela, Conservatives on Fire, has an explanation for why the GOP has spun it’s wheels over the last…oh…100 years.

Let’s imagine our teeter-totter perfectly balanced. The Republican ideas on the right are balanced by the Democrat ideas on the left. We are probably at a  point in time prior to 1913. So what makes the totter teeter? Clearly if one party out numbers the other party, the totter will teeter to the side with the greater weight of ideas. But much more important is what the majority party does with their ideas. Every time they convert their ideas into passed legislation there is a structural change in government. The party in power then effectively adds a segment to their side of the teeter-totter. This gives them greater leverage and the teeter-totter remains teetered in that direction until the other side not only wins the numeric majority but actually uses that majority to undo what had been done by the other party in the past.

Over the years, the Democrats have been winning the battle of ideas. They have succeeded in changing the structure of government into to what it is today. Their side of the teeter-totter is now significantly longer than the Republican side. The Republicans have actually aided the Democrats on several occasions. The Republicans have had  the majority in numbers various time and in some cases they have succeeded in undoing taxes created previously by the Democrats. However, the Republicans have also passed their own progressive programs, which has had the unintended consequence of adding segments to the left side of the teeter-totter.

Bingo.  Read the whole thing.

To follow-up on CoF’s idea, the teeter-totter is so askew towards the Democrat/Statist side because, by and large, the Republicans keep trying to use progressive legislative structures in their governance model.

Think about it.  Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education.  I know Ronaldus Magnus had bigger things on his plate to deal with when he got into office, but it would’ve been nice if he had been able to tear it down.  Instead, every Republican president has tried to make DepEd be an agency to further right of center ideas.  Many GOPers think, “As long as we’re in charge of the government, Education will be an engine of conservative education ideas.”

That’s just dipshit wishful thinking.

The Department of Education can never do what some conservatives and Republicans think it’s capable of doing.  It will always be anathema to the traditional understanding of American education.  Furthermore, it will always be a tool for statists, even when the GOP occupies the White House.  Thinking the DoE can be conservative is like expecting to go to the World Series while outfitting your team with basketball sneakers and hockey sticks. You simply have no chance of winning and you’re going to look like a window-licking ass clown in the process.

The Republicans (and some conservatives) keep thinking they can use liberal tools to create right-ish solutions.  It simply cannot work.  If the Tea Party and the GOP expect to reverse the slide into dreary life-hating corporate socialism, they can’t just throw us a few shallow meager reforms and think that’s going to do the trick.  The nanny-state built by Woodrow Wilson, FDR and Obama is stronger than the small potatoes cosmetic band-aid actions that Republicans have always applied to the problem.  It cannot be pruned or shaped or reconfigured.  It must be ripped from the ground, roots and branches all.