I wrote my Nov. 8 article, "How Republicans Feel" as part of an effort to show the greater Tufts student body that just because one does not concur with the general political climate at an elite eastern institution, it does not mean that this person is ignorant. I also hoped to open an honest dialogue of ideas between Republicans and Democrats. I am pleased to see by the responses in the Daily that much of what I set out to do has already been accomplished. However, it would be remiss of me to not respond to some of the allegations brought forward by some campus Democrats.
In his article, "The irony of a vote for Bush," Joel Wertheimer alleges that President Bush essentially duped me into thinking that he supported the ideals in which I believe, when he really did not.
More specifically, Wertheimer claims that Bush is not a true advocate of free trade. He cites President Bush's imposing of quotas on textiles from China as an example. However, Wertheimer ignores the political reasons behind such a policy decision. He fails to mention that the Chinese have violated WTO rules in 2001, 2002, and 2003, while also manipulating its currency. Moreover, Wertheimer forgets that this past spring the United States successfully resolved seven pending trade disputes with China without resorting to lengthy WTO litigation.
Wertheimer needs to also take a closer look at the new Conservatism espoused by the Republicans since the Reagan Revolution. Tax policy advocated first by Reagan and now by Bush cannot simply be labeled supply-side economics. Bush also believes in Monetarism. Monetarism frees Bush from traditional worries about large deficits, because monetarists hold that deficits will not cause inflation, so long as the Fed prevents the supply of money from increasing faster than the economy's potential.
While in an ideal world Republicans would still like to see the size of government reduced, this simply was not the world Bush faced during his first term in office. The first year of Bush's presidency was marked by an inherited recession and terrorist attacks. Bush was forced to increase spending in order to create the Department of Homeland Security and remove the Taliban from Afghanistan to insure American safety. At the same time, he had to fight the inherited recession, which could only be deepened by the terrorist attacks. He believed, and I believe, that the best way to fight the recession was to cut taxes. Not surprisingly to neo-conservatives, and contrary to what liberals want you to believe, Bush's tax cut policy was largely successful. The recent recession was actually the shallowest post-Great Depression recession.
To suggest, as Wertheimer does, that it is not truly a tax cut but a tax shift to future generations is foolhardy. People predicted the same demise to our national economy in the 1980s as our deficits were reaching record highs. However, these critics conveniently forgot their concerns as Monetarist policy laid the groundwork for the booming '90s. However, to be honest, I do hope that Bush or his successor will take the steps necessary to reduce deficits as the economy recovers. I simply do not think that the past four years were an appropriate time to be worrying about the deficit.
Wertheimer claims, reminiscent of John Kerry, that while the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq may have been just, they could have been conducted differently. To say that the war in Iraq suffered from a "complete and utter lack of preparation" is simply false. The U.S. attacked Iraq on May 19, 2003. Within three weeks, Baghdad had fallen. Within 4 months of the fall of Baghdad, an interim governing council was in place. By December, Saddam was captured, and by June of 2004, a new Iraqi government was in place. Now, for the first time in their nation's history, they will be having elections in January.
No one said that liberating Iraq would be an easy task. Insurgents, whom we are now ousting in Fallujah, have clearly made the task more challenging. But the presence of a few thousand radical insurgents does not mean that there is a civil war or that democracy will be impossible.
As far as the morality issue is concerned, Mr. Wertheimer can not possibly imagine what I have against gay marriage. Then again, I cannot possibly imagine what liberals have against an innocent, unborn child.
It is condescending to suggest that I did not know what exactly I was voting for when I cast my ballot for George Bush. Worse yet is the feeling of Sabrina Pinto, who in her Nov. 11 viewpoint, "How wrong are thee? Let me count the ways" wrote that I made a mistake "in believing that people would actually care about how Republicans feel." Clearly, judging by the responses published in this newspaper, many people do care. This nation will truly be in trouble if more people take the attitude of Ms. Pinto. If people stop caring about the opinions of others with whom they disagree, and if these same people begin dismissing contrarian thought and opinion, it will be a sad day indeed. Until then, I hope that people will continue to truly care about ideas that come from both sides of the aisle.<$>
