Commentary Magazine: Peter Wehner: 'A Conservative Vision of Government'

Source:The New Democrat 

I’m going to write what a conservative government should look like at least in mind and go to the Barry Goldwater school of conservatism to do this. Because this is the most accurate way to explain what conservatism is and what conservative government looks like. And no, this won’t be a libertarian government or a theocratic government. Christian or otherwise. But how Classical Conservatives would govern if they had all the power. Keep in mind, I’m a Liberal so this is not what my form of government would look like. Even though I agree and respect a lot of the conservative principles of limited government. But this is how a Barry Goldwater conservative government would look like.

I’ve always said that Conservatives shouldn’t be so much anti-government, but anti-big government. And what is big government, well that is the story for another piece, but the idea of big government is government especially the Federal Government trying to do too much. And interfering into the personal and economic affairs of the individual. The whole Barry Goldwater line of I don’t want big government in my boardroom, bedroom or classroom. So what should government be doing, be limited to only the things that we need government to do.

And of course you may say can I be less specific, well I can. But it means you want government doing the things for the people who people can’t do for themselves, or do as well. To give you examples. You want government doing things like law enforcement, national security, foreign policy, handling interstate crimes, regulating interstate commerce and these things would apply to the Federal Government. What you want the states to do is law enforcement within their state, regulating business’s in their state, education and applying private market principles to all of these governmental affairs. And goes to things like accountability.

Part of the problem with right-wing rhetoric whether it is conservative or libertarian today, is even though they make it very clear what they do not want government to do anything. Especially the Federal Government, they don’t seem to be able to communicate what they want government to do. Especially the Federal Government so when they talk about cutting taxes and government spending, they don’t seem to know what they want to cut and how much revenue they need government to raised to perform the public services that they want government to do. But with a conservative vision of government and now you know exactly what Conservatives want from government, then you’ll know what taxes you need to have and what levels to raise the revenue for the government you need and nothing more.

Source:Harvard University

The Washington Post: E.J. Dionne: 'The Resurgent Progressives, Return of The New Left'

Source:The New Democrat

I agree with most of what EJ Dionne said in his column today. I thought his best line was “that to have a vibrant middle you need a vibrant Left and Right countering each other. To give the middle and again I’m talking about the American political spectrum if you are having trouble following along, you need both a strong Left and Right for the middle to be able to pick and choose what they like about both sides and put them into their own politics and how they look at the issues.

In the 112th Congress we were in a right-wing state of mind politically especially as it related to the economy. With the Right always on the offensive with the Left always on the defensive defending things they care about. And then settling for the best among bad alternatives to compromise with House Republicans. The 2011 debt ceiling known as the Budget Control Act that was all about budget cuts and no new revenue. Not even from tax reform is a perfect example of that.

So that is why I as a center-left Liberal Democrat, a real Liberal, I am not worried about the Progressives, or Social Democrats on the Far-Left lets say coming out strong in 2014. And pushing for things like. a minimum wage increase that I support if it comes with a tax break for small employers. Or talking about what I call the income gap that others call income inequality, because these issues give Liberal Democrats such as myself a big opportunity to talk about things like more job training.

Real educational opportunities for our low-skilled workforce so they can get themselves the skills that they need to live in economic freedom and be able to get themselves off of public assistance all together. Which is exactly what will happened if our low-skilled workers and low-skilled unemployed were able to do that. And they wouldn’t need public assistance at all which is the right way to make savings in public assistance. By having fewer Americans who actually need it.

I’m not worried about the Progressive-Left or the more socialist minded Far-Left emerging strong in 2014. Because unless they come from very strong Democratic or Progressive leaning House districts, or states, they won’t be on the ballot for the most part in 2014. And the center-left Liberal Democrats will be in those districts in the states. And these campaigns will give Democrats an opportunity and choices and decisions to make. About where we want to go as a party in the next few years. Remain as a center-left liberal party, or move further to the Left and become more of a social democratic party.

TV Days: 'President John F. Kennedy Explains The Need For Medicare'

Source:TV Days- President John F. Kennedy.

Source:The New Democrat

One of the advantages of Medicare is that when someone's spouse gets hurt Medicare is there to make sure that all senior citizens at least will get the affordable health care that they need. So they do not have to go bankrupt in order to cover their health care bills. I just wish they went further in the mid 1960s and allowed for everyone if they choose to pay into Medicare. And use it as their health insurance as well if they chose to. And even let the states set up their own Medicare system so the program doesn’t become too centralized. Had they done that we wouldn’t have the expensive healthcare system that we do today. Medicare was never called Seniorcare or SenioCitizenCare, it was called Medicare. Which means medical care for people and that doesn’t have to be senior citizens necessarily. Medicare could have been the so-called public option that was debated in 2009-10, but started in 1965. And we would still have a private health insurance as well as health care today. But where more Americans would have more choice in how they paid for their health care.   

Source:TV Days

TV Days: 'John F. Kennedy vs. Ronald Reagan- On Medicare'

Source:TV Days- President John F. Kennedy, 35th POTUS.

Source: The New Democrat 

"Does Medicare = Socialized Medicine? - John F. Kennedy vs Ronald Reagan

This video contains segments of Ronald Reagan's 1961 audio LP recording made for the American Medical Association's "Operation Coffee Cup," which was a campaign against proposed senior citizen healthcare legislation called Medicare. This video also contains segments of President John F. Kennedy speaking of the real need for Medicare senior citizen health insurance."

From TV Days

I have a lot of respect for Ronald Reagan, but he was simply dead wrong about Medicare. And by the time he was President of the United States at least, he was even a supporter of Medicare and spoke in favor of it. Were there members of Congress looking to nationalize the health insurance system, if not the entire health care system in the 1960s, I’m sure there were. But that is not what President Kennedy and then later President Lyndon Johnson were proposing. And what President Johnson then later got passed out of Congress in 1964, what they got out of Congress was guaranteed health insurance for senior citizens and the poor. Which is Medicare and Medicaid and I wish they went further and allowed for all Americans above poverty to pay into Medicare if they chose to. In other words the public option, but they didn’t even go that far.

Richard Nixon Presidential Library: ‘New Federalism: Returning Power to The People’

Source:Richard Nixon Presidential Library- President Richard Nixon's OMB Director Richard Nathan.

Source:The New Democrat

“August 08, 2011: Nixon administration officials discuss RN’s national policy to transfer power from the federal government to state and local governments.

Location: Richard Nixon Presidential Library

Participants:

Edwin Harper, Nixon White House Domestic Council Assistant Director;

James Falk, Nixon White House Domesctic Council Associate Director;

Richard Nathan, Assistant Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Nixon;

Shirley Anne Warshaw (moderator), Professor of Political Science, Gettysburg College.

Organized by Nixon White House Associate Director Geoffrey C. Shepard, the forums are co-sponsored by the National Archives and the Richard Nixon Foundation.”

From the Richard Nixon Presidential Library 

"New Federalism Interviews: James Falk" 

Source:Richard Nixon Foundation- interviewing James Falk.

From the Richard Nixon Foundation

"The New Federalism investigates whether returning a variety of regulatory and police powers back to the states will yield better government. It poses the provocative question, Can the states be trusted? and emerges with a qualified yes. This book should be an invaluable resource to federal and state policymakers alike." 

Source:Amazon- The New Federalism.

From Amazon

I think to understand what Richard Nixon’s vision for what they called the New Federalism, you have to understand the political climate of the 1960s, the 1970s, and even the 1950s, when Richard Nixon was Dwight Eisenhower’s Vice President. And then you also have to understand what the Republican Party was like back then as well. Otherwise the New Federalism, the concept of a public safety net coming from a Republican President, will look very alien and foreign to you. It might look like a hip-hopper at a Mississippi country music festival, or something so out of place like that.

During the 1960s, we had President John F. Kennedy’s vision for the New Frontier, where he wanted to use the Federal Government to help people in need, help themselves. Then we had President Lyndon’s B Johnson’s Great Society, where they believed so American  should have to go without and that it was the job of the Federal Government to make sure that everyone is taken care of.

When Richard Nixon becomes President in January, 1969, he didn’t come back to Washington to destroy the New Deal or Great Society. He didn’t have the power to do that with a Democratic Congress (House and Senate) with solid majorities in it. And he didn’t thinking eliminating those programs would be good politically or on policy grounds either. But he believed as a Republican that the country needed a choice and not have a Republican President that governs as a Progressive Democrat.

This might sound hard to believe with Watergate, the plumbers and all the constitutional civil liberty violations that the Nixon White House was guilty of in the early 1970s. But ideologically, Richard Nixon was a Progressive Republican. He had a lot more in common with Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Dewey, Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller, then he ever had in common with Robert Taft, or Barry Goldwater, or Ronald Reagan. Nixon believed in progress and using government to help create that progress. But he wasn’t a Socialist either or even a Democratic Socialist.

The New Federalism is the Progressive Republican vision of the public safety net in America, where you would have public programs available for people who truly need them, but they would be designed to move people out of poverty, with educational and work requirements, as well as time limits on then. And they would be run by the state and local government’s. But by the Feds, unlike with the Great Society and New Deal. 

President Gerald R. Ford: State of The Union Address (January 12, 1977)

Source:James Miller Center- President Gerald R. Ford (Republican, Michigan) 38th POTUS (1974-77)

Source:The New Democrat 

"President Ford gives his final State of the Union Address, bidding his farewell to Congress and describing the strength of the United States and what must be done to make further improvements.

From the James Miller Center 

"The initials synonymous with the Republican Party—“GOP”—stand for “grand old party.” As early as the 1870s, politicians and newspapers began to refer to the Republican Party as both the “grand old party” and the “gallant old party” to emphasize its role in preserving the Union during the Civil War. The Republican Party of Minnesota, for instance, adopted a platform in 1874 that it said “guarantees that the grand old party that saved the country is still true to the principles that gave it birth.” 

In spite of its nickname, though, the “grand old party” was only a mere teenager in the early 1870s since the Republican Party had been formed in 1854 by former Whig Party members to oppose the expansion of slavery into western territories." 

Source:History- and The Grand Ole Party.

From History 

I put that Grand Ole Party quote and link in this piece for an excellent reason: The Grand Ole Party is Gerald Ford's party. His job was to restore and preserve, or conserve (if you prefer) confidence in the American form of government and our constitution, after the Watergate debacle of 1972-73, that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974. And he did a great job of doing just that.

There have been times in American history when if America didn't have a certain person as President, it wouldn't been clear if they could've survived as a country gotten through that crisis. I'm thinking of: 

Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War

Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression and World War II 

Lyndon Johnson during the civil rights movement

And yes, Gerald R. Ford during the post-Watergate period during the mid-1970s

Now, maybe the country would've survived during those periods with someone else as President, but we would've been a lot worst off. 

Of course as a Conservative Republican, Gerry Ford was partisan. He was House Minority for almost 9 years, Vice President and then President of the United States and Leader of the Republican Party. But he wasn't President as a partisan. He knew the situation that he inherited and knew what his job was, which was to restore order and confidence in the American system and form of government. 

There are plenty of people who think that Gerry Ford was a great man and a good President. I'm a Democrat, but I'm one of those people. But almost no one (Democrat or Republican) thinks that Gerry Ford was a bad man. And we're talking about someone who served in the U.S. Government for over 30 years, if you count his military service during World War II.  

This post was updated June 14, 2023.

Sports Channel New York: MLB 1987- 5-16- New York Yankees @ Seattle Mariners: Full Game

Source:Sports Channel New York- covering the Yankees & Mariners from 1987.

Source:The New Democrat

“It’s a SportsChannel feed with Spencer Ross and Ken Harrelson, May 16, 1987, between the New York Yankees and the Seattle Mariners.”

From This is Where You Find Baseball

An interesting matchup with the Yankees of the late 1980s, who were still contenders, but like the Yankees of the mid-1980s, they just contended and didn’t manage to win the AL East back then and until 1994.

Pre-1995, the only way you make the MLB Playoffs is to win your division. So finishing second or third, even if you just finish a few games out of first, was not good enough to make the AL Playoffs or NL Playoffs. So the greatest franchise in MLB missed the playoffs for the final eight seasons of the 1980s, because they couldn’t win their division. But that is a topic for a future post as far as why they couldn’t win their division.

The Mariners on the other hand, we’re just starting to become fairly competitive at this point. They didn’t have their first winning season until the early 1990s, but could no longer be counted on to finish dead last in the AL West. Because they were good enough to now beat good teams.

It wasn’t until the 1990s that the Mariners actually became very good and making the AL Playoffs and winning the AL West. Because they finally put teams together that were built for the Kingdom. Which was a great hitters stadium, where the ball flied and where dimensions were fairly short. And where they had more ground ball pitchers, with very little foul territory.