I am sympathetic to Frank Rich’s point, but he’s simply wrong about this:
If the right puts its rabid Obama hatred on the down-low, what will — or can — conservatism stand for instead? The only apparent agendas are repealing “Obamacare” and slashing federal spending as long as the cuts are quarantined to the small percentage of the budget covering discretionary safety-net programs, education and Big Bird.
Now, I’m sure that the Republicans will be all too wiling to attack the social safety net when it comes time to fight about the budget, but we just had a debate in the House about keeping the government operating over the remainder of the year. And the Republicans were not attacking Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. They were attacking the Environmental Protection Agency, the Environmental Appeals Board, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and other regulatory bodies, including the Department of Health & Human Services which has responsibility for regulating the health insurance industry. It’s true that they also attacked some discretionary funding like money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts, but their primary thrust was aimed at giving businesses a free hand to pollute and screw the customer.
Frank Rich ought to be on this, because it’s proof-positive that the Tea Party movement isn’t really about taxes, which are at 50-year historic-low rate right now. It may seem like the modern Republican Party lacks substance, but their agenda is crystal clear.
