The GOP is not soft on terror.
They are in favor of lower taxes.
Dubya is showing some courage regarding Social Security reform, even if the rest of the party cannot locate 5 vertebrae among them (see also; judicial nominations).
That’s about all the good news there is though; otherwise it’s “huge and growing government as usual.”
Where is the choice of smaller government that formerly characterized the Republican Party?
Once the GOP gained the power of both houses and the presidency, i.e., uncontested power to buy votes with taxpayer money, you could no longer tell one Porkocratican from another.
Subversion of democracy through pandering to interest groups using tax revenue was predicted by D’Toqueville and the Founders both, but no one reads them anymore in the general scramble to divide the spoils of “interest group representative” taxation and spending.
Lip service is paid to reducing the infuence of “lobbyists” through “campaign finance reform”, for example. In fact, this law serves only to limit free speech in order to protect incumbents.
The power to tax is a problem, but it pales in comparison with the power to spend – extra-constitutionally or otherwise.
The only way to reform politics related to money is to so severely limit government spending power as to make lobbying for monetary dispensation uneconomic. This scenario the Founders intended.
So, what do we get from the Bush administration and its fellow-travellers? We get the largest increase in spending since Lyndon “Great Society” Johnson.
As Cato points out: “The GOP establishment in Washington today has become a defender of big government.”
I’m afraid they’ve become nothing but “in power.” When you elect any government in this country today, that’s exactly what you will get – established power.
The differences in the major parties could really be only details, but for the fact of Demorcrat world-statism.
As it stands, we can choose between strong defense, lower taxation, sensible proposals about Social Security and further bloating of government – OR – deference to the United Nations at the expense of US sovereignty, higher taxation, mindless obstruction for partisan advantage, and even faster bloating of government.
Spending control is not an offered option. Thomas Hobson, call your office.
George Bush has produced a temporary pause in the “UNification” of the United States. This is small comfort, because meanwhile individual liberty is being sucked into the maw of federal spending at ever greater rates.
Given a choice between sending my tax dollars to the UN or sending them to “No Child Left Behind”, I’ll say – “Neither, thanks”. But it isn’t as if I have that choice.
What’s needed is a place that offers a choice – in order to start over.
Let us fervently hope, therefore, that the Liberal Party in Canada, or Bananada as it should be known, wins the next election. And the next, and the next – until the embedded corruption produces a separatist sentiment sufficient to give “us” a chance for an entirely new country.
That thought raises two questions. What are the campaign finance regulations in Canada regarding contributions from foreigners? And how do I bypass them?
I’ll check this on the Liberal Party website and let you know.
I’m sure the Grits have a plan, and bribing Canadian politicians is quite a bit cheaper both in absolute terms and becuase of a favorable exchange rate.
Update: 14-May-05 fixed Bananada link