David Frum:

“The US economy has plunged into severe recession (94% of Americans describe economic conditions as “bad,” according to the Feb 2-4 CBS poll, and 51% say conditions are getting even worse).

President Obama and the Democrats have responded by steering the US radically to the left. Since World War II, the federal government has most years spent less than one dollar in five of national income. Once the stimulus gets underway, the federal government will spend more than one dollar in four. The cost of everything the Democrats want to do comes closer to one dollar in three.

We’re facing more regulation of everything from high finance to the ordinary workplace. The Democrats are expanding Medicaid to crowd out private insurance. The federal government wants a huge new role in redirecting private investment in transportation and energy in the name of “green jobs.”

And facing all this – we’re talking about mice?

Could we possibly act more inadequate to the challenge? More futile? More brain dead?

We in fact have a constructive solution to offer, one that would deliver more jobs faster: the payroll tax holiday, an idea endorsed by almost every reputable right-of-center economist. But that’s not the solution being offered by Republicans in Congress. They are offering a clapped-out package of 1980s-vintage solutions, including capital gains tax cuts. Capital gains! Who has any capital gains to be taxed in the first place?

Almost 70% of Americans say that President Obama will change the country for the better, the CNN poll found Feb. 7-8. Asked whether President Obama is doing enough to cooperate with Republicans, 74% said yes. Asked whether Republicans are doing enough to cooperate with President Obama, 60% said no.

In every poll I’ve seen, hefty majorities approve of President Obama’s economic performance. Approval numbers for congressional Republicans remain dismal.

If we’re to make progress in 2010, we have to look serious. This week we looked not only irrelevant, but clueless and silly. Quite a job for a little mouse.”

Most often I look at Frum as the David Brooks of the Internet – lukewarm conservatism at it’s finest. Yet on this I would agree. While I applaud the did not play Obama’s fear game and jettison principals over substance, I would agree with Frum that we didn’t offer much of a alternate solution.

But let’s not forget the most important point. The porkulus isn’t going to work, it simply isn’t. No more than the last hand out worked. The American public in those polls are reacting to Obama’s fear mongering, and perhaps the very real gravity of the circumstances. Yet once it becomes clear that the extra $13 a week in their paycheck – if they have one – isn’t going to make much of a difference, those high numbers of approval will change.

When they do the GOP at that time better have the alternate plan ready to go. If they do, they’ll be in a good position in 2010 and beyond.

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