President Reagan sent you this on December 11, 1992, not long after it was clear just how bad the 1990 budget deal actually was and that it had cost his successor the election. The Clintons had already set their sights on revising how history would view the eighties (avoiding the term, "the Reagan years"). President Reagan knew it and he passed the gauntlet to you.
More than a decade has passed since President Reagan handed you the gauntlet. Conservatism has gained strength and shows promise of gaining even more. Republicans have taken some timid first steps toward rolling back some socialistic programs, even while expanding others. This election may have given Republicans a mandate, but it is not a major mandate based on the Great Debate nor is it a mandate for sweeping reform that would cut the laws, regulations, and governmental bureaus that exceed the limits placed on the federal government by the Constitution. At best, Republicans have a mandate to tinker with the problems of socialism and maybe talk about some major changes in the tax code. Confirmation hearings will keep the Senate preoccupied for much of the next session. Republicans appear to be positioning for the 2006 off-year elections to be about the elimination of the IRS. Does anyone, including Republicans, expect anything more from the next Congress? Republicans in office will avoid tackling the problems of the Gokhale-Smetters unfunded liabilities as long as possible, and then will tackle them only from the stand point of pushing them into the future for somebody else to risk their re-election. As far as thinking goes for politicians, they are always facing their next re-election; everything else is secondary.
Rush, in the same vein as Ronald Reagan's epiphany, if you don't tackle this problem, who will? Is there really anybody else that can? Let alone as well? Unlike President Reagan, you don't have to run for the Whitehouse. Arguably, you can be more effective by leading the Reagan Wing, recruiting citizen-statesmen and preparing them for the Great Debate.
Excellence in Golf should be a fun project. The theory has a ninety percent chance of being correct. Callaway Golf became the world's largest golf club manufacturer based on a golf club for which there is no evidence that it has ever lowered the score of a single golfer. What will you be able to do with one that can be proved to be capable of lowering the score of every golfer?
Socialism is a shrinking zero-sum game because it promotes consumption of the investment capital pool. Capitalism makes the pie bigger for everybody. If you think you are having more fun now than a human being should be allowed, wait until the Reagan Renaissance and Excellence in Golf start paying dividends. The pie will not only be bigger for every living American, but it will keep getting bigger for every generation of Americans to come.
There are some who are going to ask about your history of addiction and whether it might effect your ability to lead. We are all human and we all make mistakes. It is how we learn. President Reagan was willing to entrust you with the Sacred Fire of Liberty. In my humble opinion, no one deserves it more. It's your choice Rush, ash-heap or Renaissance?