perfidy

Calpundit has an interesting post up, about just what are the Republicans up to?

A while back I had an email exchange with another blogger who said that the problem with Democrats is that they're under the misguided impression that their social policies are actually popular. So they keep banging away on guns and abortion and gays and they don't realize that the country just isn't with them.
As it happens, I don't agree with most of that, but let's leave it alone for now and apply the same thought to the Republicans.Every party in power eventually overreaches, and I think the Republicans are on the verge of doing this right now because they keep fooling themselves into thinking their economic policies are popular. But they aren't. Sure, no one wants to pay taxes, but eventually we'll have to make a choice between cutting taxes and cutting Social Security and Medicare and other programs, and Republicans are going to learn what they know in their hearts already: these programs are a lot more popular than tax cuts. When that day comes, the Republicans will be out on their ears.

I know conservatives hate to face up to this, and libertarians hate it even more, but the social safety net is really, really popular. You screw with it at your peril, and sometime soon it's going to become clear that Republicans have no support for a policy that's designed to cut back on them. The only question is, is "sometime soon" 2004 or 2008?

What he said. Times are hard. Don't try to BS me on this one: times are hard. Tax policy is only sexy until people need to go the emergency room, or go on disability, or lose their job. Then the social safety net suddenly becomes really, really important. (This fact is what blocks me from becoming a true fiscal conservative. The outer reaches of that philosophy are a bit more social-darwinist than I can stomach.) Depending on how the next few months go, this fact may become the deciding issue of the '04 election. That is, unless Buckethead's Chicago-school economics are right. We shall see. We shall see.