Undoing 80 years of Liberal Policies

Yesterday I heard a comment made by Newt Gingrich that precipitated an “aha moment”. He said something to the effect that this upcoming election was an opportunity for America to undo all the Left’s social policies of the last 80 years. Newt openly and loudly said something that has been talked about in conservative circles for decades. So if indeed that is the Republican, or at least their extreme end’s strategy, then in that context, many of the tactics employed today make sense.

· Holding steadfast to the notion of “no tax increases” forces the government to cut spending and not allowing those cuts to occur in areas like defense and business subsidies, forces cuts of social services.
· The zeal for balancing the budget I believe, is also in reality a move to reduce spending on social services. This is demonstrated by the fact that the Republicans are allowing no revenue increases and are willing to chance a deep recession here and global economic turmoil
· The movement to make impotent or eliminate public service unions, the last bastions of organizations representing labor. (I wonder to what extent the labor disputes initiated by owners of the NFL and NBA teams are influenced by this broad agenda?)
· Eliminating public education by privatizing it under the guise of education reform. I believe that the movement, Students First, initiated by Michelle Rhee, may be more about ideology than education.
· The recent proposal to privatizing Medicare
· Past attempts to privatize Social Security
· Constant attempts to prevent the formation of, undermine or eliminate regulatory agencies focused on protecting the consumer or labor.

The Republican’s intransigence, in this context makes total sense. The cry for job creation is only a ruse to placate the public. Their real aim is to rid the country of as much “socialist” programs now, just in case they cannot win the next election or better yet to destroy Obama’s chances for reelection by whatever means and short term consequences be damned.

The Right tends to be more xenophobic and often speaks of our exceptionalism. Over the last eighty years we have become the strongest economy with the strongest military, have sent a man to the moon, bankrupted the Soviet Union, and developed a standard of living that continues to attract many to our shores. Though not perfect, our government must have done something right over those 80 years. I wonder what we would look like were it not for the “social” programs Newt rails against?