Clinton and Obama repeat the word “change” like some kind of incantation. But I don’t want mere change, even though Bush has been a disaster in many respects. There is such a thing as change for the worse. How about competence? Sound policy? Sensible decisionmaking?
The process of stringing together focus-grouped phrases, promising to give other people’s money away, and trolling for votes guarantees almost the exact opposite of a candidate able to move in a better direction. This is particularly apparent in the Democratic Party where the great money giveaway is a time-honored tradition.
Consider the following five questions and how we have no idea how the major candidates from either party would respond:
1) Social security is going broke. Medicare and medicaid are spending more money then ever, not least because of George W’s giveaway on prescription drugs. How will you make these programs solvent, scale them back, or otherwise deal with the impending entitlement disaster?
2) Farm subsidies represent the most naked interest group politics by a small but politically well organized minority. Many farmers make six figures a year with subsidies, paid, in many cases, so that they do not farm and leave production up to agribusiness. Will you show courage and leadership to end this nonsense?
3) Whether we stay in Iraq or not, there are many problems in the world. Russia in particular is resurgent and Kosovo appears bent on declaring independence, to the chagrin of the Serbs and their Russian patron. What will you do if Kosovo declares independence? How will you prevent this?
4) The federal government is big and getting bigger. Something like one in three dollars spent in the economy are spent by the government and its proxies. Our debt is $9 trillion. Where will you cut the budget? In other words, who are you willing to hurt today to help ensure fiscal responsibility?
5) Mexico has done nothing to prevent the smuggling of people and drugs from Mexico into the United States. Will you propose any form of retaliation against Mexico for these irresponsible and costly policies?
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Wasn’t it Edmund Burke who said “Change is not always reform”?
The closest I can find via a quick internet search is this: “To innovate is not to reform.”