Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp? Ancient history, man. A balanced budget and fiscal responsibility? Who cares? Smaller government, greater accountability, letting taxpayers keep more of their own cash? Forget about it!Yeah, meet the modern Republican Party -- a crass, soft-headed group of pols who may spout the old rhetoric when they're back home at the pie socials, but whose actions when back in Washington reveal them to be simply "Democrat Light."
Indeed, surrendering to the Democrats was a pretty popular tradition for the G.O.P. even when they had majority power. Nowadays, Republicans are more feeble and fawning than ever, cowardly discarding their heritage and even their personal promises to constituents as they support one Democrat initiative after another.
A sad case in point is the recent cave-in of Senate and House Republicans who voted for legislation that will raise spending 44% above last year's! Because of the huge number of Republicans involved, even President Bush's promised veto of the pork-filled catastrophe will mean nothing. As Bob Novak puts it, "Today's Republican Party -- divided, drifting, demoralized -- is epitomized by the farm bill." And as Jeff Flake, the genuinely conservative Congressman from Arizona, put it, "Sometimes, here in Washington, we tend to drink our own bath water and believe our own press releases."
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