IntraParty Republican Critics' Shortcomings

I found this interesting:

Conservatism, despite these impressive electoral victories, is failing on its own terms. Start with the social indicators, which are the most important to conservatives. America's fast-growing and largely minority underclass shows limited signs of progress or assimilation to middle-class American life. And the white middle class -- the bed-rock of conservatism's political strength and social vision -- is showing signs of social stagnation and economic regress that should be sounding ominous claxons in conservative meeting halls but, so far, have attracted only the attention of Charles Murray. Stagnant income growth and mobility and a shrinking middle class are considered unhealthy by most conservative understandings of social health, cohesion, and well-being. While conservatives have plenty of macro ideas for increasing economic growth, they have fewer ideas about how to secure a wider distribution of new wealth.

Political and economic indicators bring more grim news. Thirty years after the arrival of the Reagan Revolution, government is bigger than ever. The Reagan years appear to have been little more than a mild speed bump in the progress of ever-larger government. The regulatory state advances relentlessly on every front. The soaring national debt threatens economic oblivion sooner or later. In short, the Reagan era, for all that was accomplished, was not an analogue to the New Deal era. In fact, the much-vaunted Reagan Revolution was not revolutionary and failed to alter the nation's basic long-term political trajectory.

I get so excited when I read sober assessments of where the conservative movement is failing, and I'm sure a conservative would feel the same way about an analagous liberal piece.  As would be expected, I agree with some of the piece, even as I don't share the author's disappointment that conservative goals aren't getting met.  The point is well-made that the Republican "starve the beast" strategy of cutting taxes now and assuming that government spending would have to be reduced as a result has been an abject failure.  I'd certainly like to see more conservatives recognize that- even if I don't share their goal of smaller government, at least it would be good if they proposed the cuts that their tax policies would actually require, rather than passing all the cost on to our children.

But this bothered me:

Of course, a reformation in conservatism demands corresponding reforms within liberalism. Liberals need to acknowledge that the American people will never support the high level of taxation -- let alone wholesale redistribution -- that would be necessary to support the future welfare state that has been set in motion. "Liberals who want a bigger welfare state and conservatives who want a smaller one have a big thing to fight about, but nothing really to talk about," noted Voegeli. "If liberals and conservatives decide they can do business with each other it will be because conservatives accept they'll never sell voters on the huge benefit reductions they ultimately seek, and because liberals decide they'll never sell the huge tax increases they ultimately need."¹⁴

...It may be that internal ideological reformation must precede bipartisan political compromise. Ideological extremists in both parties have repeatedly succeeded in scuttling tax and entitlement compromises pursued by moderate reformers in their respective parties, and at the moment, the prospects for any compromises seem remote. It is easy and crowd pleasing to blame the intransigence of the other side, but this absolves both sides of serious self-examination and self-criticism without which political progress becomes impossible for both. [Boldface is mine]

Yes, it's more of the False Equivalency Watch.  I guess since we get constant false equivalency from the media in the center of the debate, we're certainly going to get it from the Right, but it's still annoying to read.

The current debate has featured liberals arguing for a return to Clinton-era tax rates, along with increased taxes on the very wealthy.  In fact, these taxes on the rich are very popular, even supported by the rank and file of the Republican party.  Liberals, having passed the Affordable Care Act, are basically finished with major initiatives for government to take.  We're asking for the totally sustainable tax rates of the 1990s, not the even higher rates of the '70s or '60s (which were high, but sustainable too). 

And ideological extremists in the Democratic party have zero power.  Nobody listens to Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore.  Liberals may be excited by Occupy Wall Street, but the redistributive policies being pushed there have no chance of being proposed in Congress.  The moderates are fully in control of the Democratic party, and their proposed tax compromises reflect that.  It would be nice if conservatives would acknowledge that too- radicals have taken over just one party in the US, not both.