This is the Ron Paul demographic and it has shown consistently that it's nowhere near being popular enough for national elections. The simple fact is, having an effective and well-funded government which takes on particular problems that don't respond well to free markets (health care, energy reform, infrastructure, social safety net) is seen by most non-ideological people as a good thing.
Our government is extraordinarily effective for what it is. We have one of the most sophisticated countries in the world, and our tax burden as a percentage of GDP is at the low end of any country you'd want to live in.
By the way, the Heritage Foundation has gotten to the point where it's about as bad as DailyKOS. They've given up even the pretense of objectivity and descended into blatant ideological demagoguery.
Heritage Foundation has gotten to the point where it's about as bad as DailyKOS
It's impossible to find any news site, reporter, researcher, or article that doesn't have some angle.
If I find information on the DailyKOS that appears factual and is worth considering then I do so. The Heritage article linked to has a wealth of research pulled from easily verifiable sources, mostly the government itself.
There is a line between characterizing the facts to support your angle and misleading your reader. Heritage Foundation crosses that line.
I wrote them off for their recent trumpeting of the fact that 47% of people have no federal income tax liability to falsely imply that half the country doesn't carry any of the tax burden. This goes beyond having an angle, it's just plain intellectually dishonest. The standard of discourse for an ostensibly respectable academic organization should be higher than that of a political campaign. At one time Heritage Foundation adhered to a higher standard. It no longer does.
I think you're right. Those ideas aren't popular enough today, but the electorate seems to be trending more that way over time. I suspect that GOP leadership is smart enough to know this, but they've decided that this generational shift will take a few more Presidential election cycles until it matures to the point where they can capitalize on it. Until then, keep flogging the current strategy until all the value has been extracted. They've invested way too much not to do that.
Nitpick: healthcare (along with finance) is the most regulated market in the United States, with regulation picking up dramatically in the 60s. It's no accident that when you force insurance to cover lots of things the prices go up and insurance companies get pickier about who they insure. It's no accident that when you constrain the supply of doctors medical prices go up. It's no accident that medicare price-fixing causes shortages in primary care doctors. It's no accident that when you give a big tax break for employer-provided health care you wind up with insurance-induced indentured servitude.
The government spends 1 out of 2 dollars in the "market" for health care.
