Review of Republican Rule

The "Conservative" era consisted of:

President Ronald Reagan 1981-1989
President George Bush 1989-1993
Republican Control of Congress 1995-2007
President George W. Bush 2001-2009

Their stated goals were:

less government spending overall
less federal regulations in the economy
lower taxes
strong military
strong moral values

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As we enter the Obama Era with the Democrats in control of the Federal Government, it is clear that Republicans failed at their stated goals and didn't acheive very much. In fact, they have discredited many of their ideals, even though they really didn't try very hard to reach many of their goals.

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There is an almost universal assumption federal spending will rise every year, the debate is over how much.

While Republicans have won rhetorically on taxes, the fact is we have a complicated and inefficient system, that collects over a trillion dollars a year.

The federal deficit is in the hundreds of billions, and the debt is over 11 trillion dollars.

There are still a million abortions performed yearly. Leftwing groups have redefined marriage to include homosexuals in a few states and are marching nationwide. Unwed motherhood/broken families/divorce is rampant. etc.

In short the "Conservative" era has been a disaster for the nation and for Republicans in many respects. They have succeeded in their military goals somewhat, changing the welfare culture, and establishing a healthy respect for the free-market. But in reality, we live in a basically liberal country.

We are still the greatest nation on Earth in because of the contributions of all parties. They need to learn to work to implement their goals while they have a chance. Otherwise new people will be swept into office and you will be left wondering how you wasted the opportunity to try out what you really think. What happens is the people in power always think they have to moderate their views and politics to appeal to indepedents and gettable voters on the other side to stay in and/or increase their power. It is elusive however, and eventually events overtake politics. It is better to get what you can done at the time, and then try to convince the voters to keep you in power.