Monday, September 17, 2007

Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) quits Republicans: "It’s not my party any more." ... "gone too far away from his stance on too many critical issues"

September 16, 2007 | Chafee Quits Republican Party

Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), "who lost his Senate seat in the wave of anti-Republican sentiment in last November’s election, said yesterday that he has left the party," the Providence Journal reports.

"Chafee said he disaffiliated with the party he had helped lead, and his father had led before him, because the national Republican Party has gone too far away from his stance on too many critical issues, from war to economics to the environment."

Said Chafee: "It’s not my party any more."

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Greenspan praises Clinton: "Not exercising the veto power [over Repulican spending] became a hallmark of the Bush presidency.

Greenspan Is Critical Of Bush in Memoir | Former Fed Chairman Has Praise for Clinton | By Bob Woodward | Washington Post Staff Writer | Saturday, September 15, 2007; Page A01

Alan Greenspan, who served as Federal Reserve chairman for 18 years and was the leading Republican economist for the past three decades, levels unusually harsh criticism at President Bush and the Republican Party in his new book, arguing that Bush abandoned the central conservative principle of fiscal restraint.

While condemning Democrats, too, for rampant federal spending, he offers Bill Clinton an exemption. The former president emerges as the political hero of "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," Greenspan's 531-page memoir, which is being published Monday.

Greenspan, who had an eight-year alliance with Clinton and Democratic Treasury secretaries in the 1990s, praises Clinton's mind and his tough anti-deficit policies, calling the former president's 1993 economic plan "an act of political courage."

But he expresses deep disappointment with Bush. "My biggest frustration remained the president's unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending," Greenspan writes. "Not exercising the veto power became a hallmark of the Bush presidency. . . . To my mind, Bush's collaborate-don't-confront approach was a major mistake."

Greenspan accuses the Republicans who presided over the party's majority in the House until last year of being too eager to tolerate excessive federal spending in exchange for political opportunity. The Republicans, he says, deserved to lose control of the Senate and House in last year's elections. "The Republicans in Congress lost their way," Greenspan writes. "They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither."

He singles out J. Dennis Hastert, the Illinois Republican who was House speaker until January, and Tom DeLay, the Texan who was majority leader until he resigned after being indicted for violating campaign finance laws in his home state. ...

Former Fed Chairman Greenspan: Bush / Republicans derserved to lose for abandoning fiscal discipline ... "out-of-control" spending ...

Greenspan Book Criticizes Bush And Republicans | 'They Deserved to Lose'; Former Fed Chief Defends Pre-Bubble Rate Cuts | By GREG IP and EMILY STEEL | September 15, 2007; Page A1

In a withering critique of his fellow Republicans, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says in his memoir that the party to which he has belonged all his life deserved to lose power last year for forsaking its small-government principles.

In "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," published by Penguin Press, Mr. Greenspan criticizes both congressional Republicans and President George W. Bush for abandoning fiscal discipline.
...
Mr. Greenspan, who calls himself a "lifelong libertarian Republican," writes that he advised the White House to veto some bills to curb "out-of-control" spending while the Republicans controlled Congress. He says President Bush's failure to do so "was a major mistake." Republicans in Congress, he writes, "swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose." ...