Is Reform Conservatism Worse Than What it's Reforming?

     Krugman shows the answer may be yes.

     "Shaila Dewan, in the Upshot, notes that a number of Republican governors are proposing tax increases — but that in every case the tax hike would fall most heavily on those with lower incomes, and many are proposing simultaneous tax cuts for business and/or the wealthy.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I can’t take talk about “reform conservatism” seriously."

     http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/?module=BlogMain&action=Click&region=Header&pgtype=Blogs&version=Blog%20Post&contentCollection=Opinion

    The whole premise of Supply Side fiscal policy is regressive: the more regressive you make tax policy the better the outcome it produces. For instance, Sumner always says that the one fiscal stimulus he'd support is the employer side payroll tax cut-he has no interest in the employee payroll tax cut. That's symptomatic of conservatism, they believe in 'stuctural reforms' that helps the rich at the expense of the poor. 

    Krugman also doesn't buy the claim that the GOP is all about 'liberty.'

    "If you look for an overarching theme for overall conservative policy these past four decades, it definitely isn’t liberty — by and large the GOP has been enthusiastic about expanding the security and surveillance state. Nor is it in a consistent fashion smaller government, unless you define military and homeland security as not government. Instead, it has been about making the tax-and-transfer system harsher on the poor and easier on the rich. In short, class warfare."

    It certainly isn't liberty; recall that during the Ebola scare they were the ones screaming about banning all flights to and from Liberia and Chris Christie wanted to leave that female health worker from Liberia in a tent for a month even though she had shown no symptoms. 

   http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/nyregion/nurse-in-newark-to-be-allowed-to-finish-ebola-quarantine-at-home-christie-says.html?_r=0

   Yeah, this guy wants to be President! 

   So yes, Krugman's right: the reformers are just old wine in new bottles. Chritistie after finally letting that woman out of the tent claimed

   A). It didn't represent a change in policy for him. 

   B). It's a real shame she was inconveinced but he'd do it again in a heart beat if it means 'protecting New Jersey.'

   The party of Liberty alright. 

   If anything describes modern conservatives, it's being totally opposed to ever having to reverse itself on anything. Apologies for Christie and the larger party are anathema.

   The party though, starting in 2016, is going to start seeing the results of recalcitrance. In 2012 after Romney's much wider than expected defeat, GOP Nation was declaring that the one thing they could admit they were wrong about was immigration; that, no, Romney's Self-Deport proposal was terrible politically. What has happened since? The party has now convinced itself that there's no problem; that there are enough White people to help them win in 2016.

   Ok, in truth, the establishment knows this is a bad move and Karl Rove as ably as anyone showed that this White folk maximization plan that Heritage came forward with is Fool's Gold if anything ever was. 

   Still, at the end of the day, the GOP with both Houses of Congress will do nothing to pass any kind of immigration legislation other than shoring up an already pretty shored up border. 

    My point is: the GOP never learns; it just gets worse and worse. This will not stop until it spends some time in the wilderness. Any 'reform' is just going to be repackaging the same old product; they have a religious resistance to changing the product. 

    Any success it has is only short term and hurts it in thinking away it's problems. Yes, the point of people like Paul Waldman are well taken: the GOP does currently have some impressive structural advantages. They control a majority of state legislatures and Governerships, have taken over in a number of purple states, currently have huge majorities in Congress and 35 years after Reagan's election they still run the SJC. 

    My guess though is that the Dems will being to figure out the structural issues at the state level-a lot of it is thanks to gerrymadering and because the GOP is much more organized at the state level-ALEC, etc, not to mention the voter id laws meant to curtail voting by 'the wrong people.'

    At the national level they are going to be increasingly in trouble. The Dems just have a natural advantage in national elections at present and this will only be accentuated by the inability of the GOP to really adjust.  In any Presidential election the Dems already easily have 250 electoral votes sewn up. 

    The Dems will have to figure out some of the structural advantages the GOP has at the state level, but the GOP problems at the national level are more fundamental as the party simply won't change it's views on anything, Immigration has proven to be anything but an exception. 

   http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/02/on-immigration-jeb-bushs-position-is-as.html

    Meet the new Republican party. Same as the old Republican part.