Moderates and Compromise Are Not the Answer - It's Time to be Bold

We constantly hear from the left that we need more moderates and compromise.

What they really mean is they want the GOP to cave to their failed leftist ideas. Clearly, there is a growing division between the parties and I see three main reasons why it will only continue.

First, it's obvious the GOP has moved back to the right after years of moderation. The Tea Party has been a catalyst to pull the GOP back toward a party of fiscal responsibility, or risk being split into two parties giving Democrats control.  While there are social issues that unite many Republicans, it is the fiscal crisis the nation is now in that has brought out the fiscal conservative in the form of the Tea Party.

These fiscal conservatives will no longer allow moderate Republicans, or RHINO’s as we like to dub them, to control the agenda.  Still, there are too many moderates among the GOP in the Senate.

In the Republican presidential primary you have a candidate like Jon Huntsman running for president, but 15 years ago he would fit better in the Democratic Party. Clearly, the GOP still has more moderates right now, but the RHINO’s have been the problem in the GOP for years.  The media has been great at blaming the Tea Party for not allowing compromise, but the radical left has not made any proposals that a conservative could even consider worthy of compromise.  

Before the progressive movement, a group asking for fiscal sanity and government to follow the constitution would not have been considered radical or a threat to either party.

The second reason for the greater distance between the parties is the drastic shift to the left in recent years by the Democratic Party.  If you listen to Democrats, such as Barack Obama, you will hear their anti-capitalist bent as they constantly spew hate for corporations. They only want government jobs or chrony capitalist corporations like General Electric, General Motors and Solyndra.

Democrats partnered with radicals in the early 2000’s and now their guy is in charge. Obama is so far left that he supported the Socialist-Marxist “One Nation” march in October of 2010. Having total control after the 2008 elections, Democrats removed the mask and began to push their radical agenda.

The only part of the agenda blocked, thus far, by the GOP was the "Cap and Trade" system for international redistribution of wealth under the guise of environmental concerns. This move to the left can clearly be seen in the debate over Healthcare reform as well.  Almost all Democrats agreed on the radical goal of government-run healthcare. The only debate was over how quickly to move to a complete government takeover of healthcare.  

Those in safe districts, like Dennis Kucinich in the House, wanted a clear plan to get to single-payer government run health care.  Democrats who were actually worried about re-election wanted to use the Public-Option to drive out insurance companies to get to a government run system.  Then, the Senate plan appeared as the plan suited for those who pretended they were not planning a government takeover of healthcare, but it set up the framework to make it happen. 

As Senator Harkin said, “I think of the current health reform bill as something of a starter home.   It is not the mansion that some might have wanted.”  

So the debate among Democrats was really just about how fast to make the change and how much to hide the real agenda. In the 1990’s it was clear the country did not support a government takeover of healthcare and Bill Clinton moved to the center, and dropped the discussion.

This time it was even more obvious the public was not in support of government run health care, as evidenced by the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. But we have a far more extreme bunch and they realized that it could be a long time before they would have so much power again. It was so important to achieve this extreme goal that many voted for Obamacare despite knowing it would have negative effects on job growth, which they knew was more important to the country at the time. 

Now with the 2010 elections many of the so called moderate Democrats were wiped out. Most of what remained were in safe districts that usually have extreme members of the House. In the Senate, Evan Bayh, a moderate Democrat, retired, likely because he knows there is no room for moderate ideas in the Democrat party. If the Democrats in the Senate do not distance themselves from Obama it is likely many more moderate Democrats will be purged from the Senate in 2012.

A third reason for the distance between the parties is that our problems require bold action and not compromise. For Democrats to do the right thing it would require them to admit the agenda they are pushing is failing. The future of it is failing spectacularly in the United Kingdom and Greece.  In the 90’s the big unfunded liabilities of Medicare and other entitlements were way off in the future.   In this situation failing to take bold action did not threaten survival.  

The failure of either party to take bold action back then ruined an opportunity provided by temporary surpluses from the tech bubble, to increase options for reform. Now those big unfunded liabilities are not so far off and they will require more severe action each year we wait to deal with the issue.  The Democrats claim to want compromise, but what they really want is to continue the staggering spending and try to increase taxes enough to pay for it.

The vision of the Democrats is to make the United States like the UK, even as that system is in collapse.  The vision of the GOP is to reverse the mistakes of progressives, move toward following the constitution again, and develop a real plan to fix long-term problems. 

There is no way to compromise when the Democrats refuse to be honest about the need for reforming entitlements, and they try to pit one group against another with their class warfare. Moderates and compromise will not solve our problems. Only bold, conservative changes will put us on the right path. The best solution is to do what has worked well in Wisconsin and elect a solid Conservative majority and hold them responsible to reform entitlements, cut spending, and reverse the damage done by the Obama administration.