Democrats view taxes as contributions to charity, so when they designed a welfare system that cost taxpayers trillions, they considered it a doable good deed. Welfare taxes benefited the poor and forced Americans to do the right thing.

Over the years, however, it became clear that government's "charity" dollars were actually producing a social disaster – driving fathers from their children, bribing teenage girls to have children out of wedlock, subsidizing drug abuse and destroying the work ethic of entire inner city communities.

Republicans attacked this problem with their proposals for welfare reform that would put recipients to work and get others off the rolls. Determined to protect their vast welfare boondoggle that made work for so many of their bureaucratic workers, the Democrats fought back, charging the Republicans with being mean-spirited and heartless.

They said Republicans were attacking the poor – the Democrat Socialists said the Republicans were Nazis, hoping the public would forget that 'Nazi' stood afor National Socialist Democrat Party.

In proposing reform, the GOP failed to call welfare mothers to Washington to testify against a system that was breaking up their families, destroying their children and blighting their communities. They didn't call the Democrats "racists" for not caring about the destructive impact the welfare system had on inner city populations. They did not call them Nazis.

Instead, they said the welfare system was "wasteful" and "inefficient," that it "wasn't working," and it that was "an impediment to balancing the federal budget."

Horowitz, however, says that welfare is a human problem, not a bookkeeping one. It's about the destruction of human beings. But the GOP failed to address it in those terms or speak in the name of the victims of the Democrats' socialist welfare system. They didn't portray the Democrats for what they are, enemies and oppressors of the poor.

As a result, the debate about welfare was fought on Democrat turf, in terms chosen by Democrats. The GOP allowed the debate to become an argument about whether the government should spend more or less on the poor – on "charity." Republicans allowed themselves to be put in the position of wanting the government to spend less – the Democrats more. Put in those terms, it was easy for the Democrats to present the GOP as mean-spirited, heartless and uncaring.

With all the facts on their side, the Republicans managed to come out on the losing side because they simply failed to play hardball, for refusing to call a spade a spade – or, in this case, to call the Democrats for what they are: Marxist exploiters of the poor.

Democrats love to bill themselves as the education party. How, Horowitz asks, can that be possible considering the fact that there is "a human tragedy enveloping America's inner cities. Twelve million poor children, mainly black and Hispanic, are trapped in failing government schools that are teaching them nothing" [except, perhaps, how to put on condoms]. As a result, Horowitz says, "they will never get a shot at the American Dream."

And they won't get that shot, writes Horowitz, "because virtually every school board and every administration in inner city districts is controlled by Democrats, and has been controlled by Democrats for over fifty years. Everything that is wrong with inner city schools that policy can fix, Democrats are responsible for. Democrats and their allies run the public school system for the benefits of adults at the expense of children."

"Put on the language of political war: Democrats have their boot heels on the necks of poor, black and Hispanic children. But Republicans are too polite to mention it."

Furthermore, Horowitz calls the fact that half the entire school population is learning nothing a "social atrocity."

Republicans can have the upper hand in this debate if they will get down in the trenches and engage the Democrats in some hand-to-hand fighting, he advises. Cite the fact that they are putty in the hands of the "educrats" in the national teachers unions, who contribute both time and vast amounts of money to the Democrats.

Horowitz says the GOP can win this battle if it allies itself with the parents of the poor, black and Hispanic kids and fight the battle on their behalf.

You can expect the Democrats to try to paint Republicans as enemies of public schools, he says. If Republicans get there first, they can define their opponents as the enemies of the poor, black and Hispanics they want to keep in bondage to a corrupt public education system.

Can't Depend on the Media

"If Republicans do not frame the indictment of Democrats, no one is going to do it for them," Horowitz warns. "They cannot depend on the media to do it. The media [are] in the hands of the cultural left.

"In real life, Democrats are both well-heeled and mean-spirited. Their programs oppress the poor."

That's the story the GOP has to tell, not only about education but also about the full range of the Democrats' corrupt Marxist programs, which put them at odds with the majority of Americans and threaten our wealth and prosperity.

Coming Tuesday: In an exclusive interview, David Horowitz tells NewsMax.com what the GOP must do to blunt Democrat attempts to blame the current corporate scandals on the Bush administration.

Get the NewsMax e-book "The Art of Political War" and a bonus of four months of NewsMax magazine – Click Here.

Find out how you can get 'How to Beat the Democrats: And Other Subversive Ideas' for FREE – just Click Here.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
RNC