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Michael
G. Franc
This optimism is not "irrational exuberance." Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, points to studies that confirm the enormous upward economic mobility in American society. Over a ten-year period, Hubbard notes, 66 percent of low-wage earners earn enough to move up to a higher bracket. The president speaks to the aspiring millionaires among us when he describes how ending the double taxation of dividends will boost the value of our 401(k)s and how lower marginal tax rates will benefit everyone. He should be unapologetic when he explains how workers could use private retirement accounts, carved out from a portion of their Social Security taxes, to secure their futures and pass along a nest egg to their children. He should burst with pride when he tells us how tax credits for uninsured workers to purchase health coverage would end their exposure to the devastating financial consequences of uninsured medical catastrophes and allow them to build future wealth. He should let his emotions betray his passion when he explains how meaningful forms of educational choice would allow parents who are frustrated with failing and dangerous public schools to save their children by moving them to successful schools. If President Bush seizes the mantle of Reaganesque optimism, his ambitious domestic agenda will prevail. — Michael G. Franc is vice president for government relations at the Heritage Foundation.
Frank
J. Gaffney Jr. — Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy.
Mark
R. Levin Today, there are even some conservatives who argue that President Bush's political success is due, in part, to his co-opting certain Democrat issues — such as a government-based prescription-drug program, increased federalization of public education, and unprecedented farm subsidies. They admire how the President neutralized the campaign-finance-reform issue by signing a law that he once strenuously opposed. After all, they say, the U.S. Supreme Court will find it unconstitutional in any event. But this president's political strength, like his legacy, is tied inextricably to his wartime record. And it's his wartime leadership that has earned him the trust and admiration of the American people. Advancing aspects of the Democrat domestic agenda, much as Richard Nixon did, is, and will continue to be, largely gratuitous, if not altogether irrelevant, as a political matter. Since 9/11, the public's priority has been national security. (And, God forbid, should there be another attack on our country, the president will pay a political price. The Democrats and their media friends will see to that.) I am hopeful, therefore, that President Bush will not feel obliged to announce a laundry list of new or supposedly improved big-government initiatives. Instead, a reminder of our Founding principles — and, yes, that especially includes limited government — would be both inspirational and long overdue. — Mark R. Levin is an NRO contributing editor.
Clifford
D. May We did not choose this fight. But someone must step forward to lead the free world's defense against tyranny. History has thrust that responsibility upon us — upon Americans. We accept with reluctance, but with determination. Included within the free world are people from all the great faiths — Christian, Jew, Muslim, and Hindu among them. We are united by the conviction that freedom is preferable to bondage, that democracy is preferable to dictatorship, that tolerance is better than hatred. We are united by our principled opposition to the twisted ideologies that drive and inspire terrorism. Terrorism is a barbaric practice, a practice that the civilized peoples of the 21st century reject — just as civilized peoples of the 20th century rejected genocide, just as the civilized peoples of the 19th century rejected slavery, just as the civilized peoples of the 18th century rejected piracy. The dictators who support terrorism, the ideologues who justify terrorism and the murderers who commit terrorism — they are our enemies. They have chosen the path of evil. And they have chosen a dead end. Yet we still hear some people, even now, saying: "But one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." That is a lie. Whatever the grievance or complaint, no one has the right to respond by intentionally murdering other people's children. Through forceful actions as well as strong words, we must make it clear that terrorism furthers no cause. Rather, terrorists delegitimize the very causes they claim to champion. We still hear some people, even now, arguing for the appeasement of terrorists and of the regimes that enable them. Those people are wrong. They have failed to learn the lessons of history. We Americans are slow to anger, and reluctant to go to war. But we know how to defend ourselves and our allies, and we do so when we must. Now is such a time. Dig through the rocky soil of history. There you will find the ruins of the Nazis, the Fascists, the Communists, and others who hated Americans and other free peoples. There, soon, you will find the terrorist groups and the terrorist states that are in league with them. I say to you today as I have said in the past: The United States will not permit the world's most-dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons. The American nation will not tire. We will not weaken. We will not despair. In defense of freedom everywhere, America and its allies will prevail — so help us God. — Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a think tank on terrorism.
Peter
Robinson — Peter Robinson, a former Reagan speechwriter, is a fellow at the Hoover Institution and the host of Uncommon Knowledge on PBS. |
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