Posted by
Patrick Baldwin on Monday, February 02, 2009 12:00:00 AM
He came to the fork in the road and after careful, ah, consideration, ah, he decided to take the path that was so well travelled that government had raised taxes and paved it!
Is it just me or have we reached a point where a third party is not only an attractive idea, but becoming more necessary every day?
First, we have a president who promised us a change, and we just changed back, mainly, to the Clinton administration. We have a Secretary of State with a clear conflict of interest due to her husband's foreign donor ties. We have an Attorney General who signed off on pardons for terrorists. We have a Treasury Secretary who is a tax cheat. We are about to have a HHS Secretary who is a tax cheat. The first Commerce Secretary nominee had to withdraw due to being a target of a criminal investigation, and the Deputy Defense Secretary was the leading defense industry lobbyist. If a conservative president had made these appointments he would have already been tarred and feathered by the media. But since these people were nominated by Obama, they are simply allowed to say, "I'm sorry", and all is forgiven. I really don't think that President Obama should spout any more statements about ethics in government.
Second, take a look at the Congress. The House Democrats have crafted a "porkulus" plan to save the economy, but of $825 billion the Congressional Budget Office finds that only 12 cents out of every dollar actually has anything to do with stimulus. The rest are a slew of projects that address nearly every liberal dream project of the last 40 years. House Republicans should be congratulated for standing together, along with a handful of Democrats, to oppose this insane bill. However, before you applaud too loudly, keep in mind that they weren't given a chance to participate in writing the bill and therefore weren't able to add any of their boondoggles in, and being as there was no chance of the bill failing, it made it real easy to vote against it.
Even if you give the House Republicans a big hand for opposing this monster, don't get carried away the Senate has yet to act. While there was initially some hope that Senate Republicans would stand firm against the "porkulus" bill, and therefore hold the line that 68% of Americans want held, it now becomes clear that they are only really playing hard ball so that they can get input, and word comes out that their plan comes it at more than $900 billion! They want to protect us from waste so much that they are willing to spend even more of our children's money to do it!
So, Democrats and Republicans alike are proposing a "stimulus" plan (see above for true term) that does little to grow our economy, and truly only grows two things, the size of government and the debt that our children and grandchildren will be saddled with. If this doesn't illustrate the need for a new third party, I don't know what does. We need elected representatives who will serve the people, the people and not the government. We need smaller government, lower taxes, more personal freedom. That would be a change we could and should believe in and hunger for!