Increasingly, Republicans are turning against the Bush administration. Admittedly, we don’t really like Kerry, and this puts us in a bind. It’s not unlike, I suppose, how some democrats felt about Michael Dukakis or Jimmy Carter. Unable to embrace their opponent, a lot of democrats held their nose before placing their vote for these guys. I’m afraid I’ll be doing that same this year—or perhaps not voting at all.
Here’s a list of what I and other republican friends are talking about that concern us.
Fiscal discipline:
If there is one reason I am a Republican, it is because we understand the requirements of fiscal discipline. Republicans understand the damaging impact of high taxes on the creativity and economic ingenuity of the people in ways that democrats, generally, do not. We all tend to like tax cuts for that reason. The larger and deeper the cuts, the better.
However, tax cuts, like all programs, must be paid for. Running deficits of $500 billion a year is irresponsible. No business, no household, and indeed, no government, can sustain itself that way. Moreover, those deficits create a different sort of tax in the form of higher interest rates for the long term because of the demand for credit. And, worst of all, it creates a mountain of debt that our children
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will pay for in higher taxes, or which will damage the economy so significantly as to have them pay for it in the form of a basketcase economy decades down the road.
The idea of tax cuts must go hand in hand with the idea of smaller government. Our current president has made government bigger, not smaller, and has borrowed and spent with no apparent awareness of a need for limits. I just can’t stomach this.
Use of the Military:
As a republican, I am strong on defense. I supported Afghanistan, I supported the invasion of Iraq—both times. I was a wary supporter of our interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo because of the ill-defined missions there. But, I must admit that I am having doubts when I think about the current involvement in Iraq.
One of my friends said: "You know, it seems to be turning out that we invaded a place unprovoked, because of weapons that didn’t exist, without a clear objective and plan to win the peace, and without a way to get out. I remember making these kinds of accusations against democratic presidents like Clinton about Yugoslavia. We said it showed poor leadership. What do we say about Bush now?"
Another responded: "Hold on, there. There’s evidence the WMD were moved to Syria right before the war. The exit plan collapsed when Chalabi turned out to be less than desirable. And besides, Saddam was bad guy."
"I know, but it still bothers me."
It bothers me, too. For my part, one way or another, we were just wrong about WMD. As a small business owner, I believe in accountability. A mistake that large, in matters of war—well, someone must be held accountable. The president is the top man, and whether you like him or not, he should be held accountable.
Terrorism:
The president has claimed a certain success in the War on Terror, and I guess he believes it is his strongest issue. At first, I was really thankful we had a president in office that wouldn’t shy from using force after 9/11. They reacted quickly, and it seemed they had taken decisive action. But now, I am less sure. Here’s why.
First, we keep having these terror alerts. No one I know pays them any attention anymore. More importantly, it seems that if we had done a really great job, there wouldn’t be any such alerts because the threat would have been eradicated.
Second, bin Laden is still apparently planning to attack our country. How is it that three years later, they still haven’t found him? Without his capture or death, there is no possibility of peace on the terrorism front.
Third, neither Afghanistan nor Iraq have been secured from terrorists, nor have they been transformed into functioning democracies. In fact, there is terrorism in Iraq now where there never was any before. This concerns me.
Finally, and most importantly, we have defined a War on Terror that has no objective, and therefore no ending. I fear that this puts us on a track to be like Israel, locked in an eternal struggle of embattlement, with psyche’s constantly at war, constantly in fear, constantly suffering the consequences at being in a war that cannot be won. I don’t think this is the president’s fault, but it does seem like it is his omission to not deal with it more effectively. If we are entering a war, the president should define its objectives clearly, and report on our progress. That’s why a lot of us opposed the Yugoslavia involvements, and that is why I am concerned about the War on Terror.
I guess I think the president has been good on terror, but not great. I wish we had a better Republican candidate, someone more like Reagan, who could truly lead the American people in a time of crisis.
Environment:
I felt the Bush’s father had brought some good innovation to environmental policy. The pollution credits market, for example. And, he resisted policies that were overly detrimental to the economy. Pretty reasonable. But I have to admit that what this president has done with the clean air act, and some of the enforcement stories that are going around—they’re bad.
Energy:
The president has positioned us well for maintaining the essential oil supplies we need. But I think any observer has to admit that if we can transform our economy to a different sort of energy, it would have a good impact on everything. Rising oil prices are hurting the economy.
Economy:
On the economy, I give the president credit because he inherited a very difficult situation. The economy was just beginning to tank, the stock market situation was bad and getting worse, and a lot of it came from the excesses of the Clinton era. Without a stimulus package like his tax cuts, it could have been much worse during the past few years than it was.
Nonetheless, the sustenance of that policy hasn’t worked all that well. My own small business shrunk in the last few years, and conditions today are as difficult as I have ever seen them. I can hire people at half the cost I used to pay, but I can’t find anything for them to do. Our customers say they want to do projects, they get cost estimates that are half what they would have paid only 2 years ago, and then they back off.
Democrats are fond of quoting the numbers, like jobs created, which were recently not so good. For me, the statistics aren’t relevant. I see it on the ground every day. My small business colleagues are ALL having a hard time right now. Capital is hard to raise, credit is hard to find, and sales are difficult to increase. Here, the president needs to do better.
Overall, it’s not so much that I am against Bush, but neither can I support him. I don’t see him making the changes necessary that would have a better impact on these issues. I don’t see the leadership that I think we need. His mantra of more tax cuts seems to just lead us to deeper fiscal crisis and minimal economic improvement. And, I don’t see a good way out of Iraq.
I can’t say what I will actually do in November, because I am not sure. I doubt I will vote for Kerry—he’s just too much a Democrat for me. But I am not excited about voting for Bush, either. It’s a real perplexity.
