New Republican Reality: No Policy is Too Right-Wing

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1108-01.htm

Published on Monday, November 8, 2004 by the lndependent/UK

The New Republican Reality: No Policy is Too Right-Wing
Conservative Pipedreams are Suddenly Part of America's Mainstream

by Andrew Gumbel reports from Los Angeles

Where should the United States invade next? Iran, Syria, or Cuba? Will George Bush merely slash taxes on the rich even further in his second term, or will he have the courage to abolish income tax altogether? Will gay marriage simply be outlawed state by state, or will a much-threatened constitutional amendment come into being?

These might once have been idle questions for conservative Washington think-tanks. But now, with President Bush safely re-elected for another four years and increased Republican majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, such radical right-wing notions are no longer pipedreams. They are the active stuff of policy discussion.

Grass-roots conservatives, many of them religious fundamentalists who paved the way for President Bush's victory in the suburbs and the rural heartland, are positively salivating at the prospect of having their efforts rewarded.

"I don't know if we're going to abolish the prescription drug benefit , but we'd like to. It's just an expansion of government," the Republican strategist and direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie said over the weekend. "We'd like to see oil and gas exploration increased in the continental United States. We want a constitutional amendment on marriage. We want the culture of life expanded."


..more.. :-(

[UdoKier]

1. Well, the prescription drug "benefit" will be no loss...

since it was crap from the outset.

But yeah, it will be a hellacious 4 years.