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Forget the campaign rhetoric about finding "bipartisan" solutions.
This isn't a wedding contract which both parties have agreed upon
voluntarily. There is no 100 day honeymoon entitlement in this
country. Presidents don't get a free pass for 100 days in which to
grab as much power and spend as much as they can. Scrutiny starts
on day one. Campaign rhetoric counts for little. Actions
speak louder. Democrats and Republicans hold
fundamentally different views about the nature of government.
There is no reason why Republicans should blissfully ignore their
beliefs for 100 days, much less 4 years. They were elected too.
Their constituents don't expect them to be the "loyal opposition", going
along with whatever the new leadership wants. They were elected to
make responsible choices on behalf of the voters who they represent.
They are under no obligation at all to agree with any other
representative.
The "emergency" stimulus bill has been an appalling
abuse of power, rationalized by fear-mongering about our economy, as
though our economy could only be saved by government. It was
government intervention in the economy and overspending which largely
created the present economic mess. As many countries have
repeatedly proven, central governments can make a bad situation much
worse. |
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effect, this bill assumes that it is the duty of our government, as in
European socialism, to direct our national economy through social
spending programs and tax incentives to create a more "fair" outcome for
favored interest groups at the expense of others.
Ours is not a parliamentary democracy. We very
deliberately fought against that model. We avoided copying it over
200 years ago, and in elections ever since. Nancy Pelosi is not
Prime Minister. States and individuals should remain a crucial
check on the growth and abuse of federal government power. |
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are facing the rape of the Constitution through majority party rule, as
George Washington warned long
ago. The New Deal of FDR was a blind date with socialism at a time
of a larger crisis created by failed government policies, and that
experiment turned out badly despite his charming populism. Carter
was another leap of faith with a smiling populist who promised social
change, which also ended badly. This
Administration seems to be bent on the rapid transfer of almost
unchecked power to the federal government. That makes a mockery of
the Tenth Amendment, and puts this country on a fast track to economic
ruin through worse policies than the FDR or Carter years. This
growth of federal government power also expands the capability to
screw up the economy far worse than ever before. |
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absolutely fitting and proper that voters should carefully scrutinize
everything that is being done from the first day in office of the new
Congress and President Obama. There is no honeymoon period.
The news media should not give anyone in government service a free pass.
The bias has been disgraceful. We still have the
power to stop this train wreck before our economy is driven completely
off the rails through reckless initiatives. There may not be
national elections for a few years, but individual voters still have
influence - not just paid lobbyists and campaign donors. We need
to be vigilant, well-organized, and vocal, rather than easily
intimidated or undermined through a political divide-and-conquer
strategy. |
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Consider just a few recent initiatives. The move of the Census
from the Commerce Department into the White House, with an extra $1
billion in funding buried in the stimulus bill, is a potentially serious
assault on the accuracy and politically non-partisan nature of the
Census process. That is the basis for many important things,
including Congressional districts as well as many federal spending
programs. This move was rushed through, like many new Executive
Orders, to expand the power of the White House staff while public
attention was distracted by other issues. |
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are also the "health information technology" initiatives which are
buried in the stimulus bill. Even though Tom Daschle had to
withdraw, these changes and the related funding in the stimulus bill
create a new federal bureaucracy for the control and oversight of all
medical records for all Americans. This seems to be a prelude to
federal bureaucrats "guiding" doctors in their treatment choices,
somewhat like the nationalized health care systems of other countries.
This is a slippery slope towards the rationing of health care spending
by bureaucratic and political decisions about what is an appropriate
treatment. For example, the elderly may be less
able to get treatments near the end of their expected lives. Those
with conditions which are difficult to treat by "standard" procedures
may find that they cannot have access to "experimental" treatments, thus
stifling research and development for new treatments. In effect,
the federal bureaucracy will tell your doctor what can or cannot be done
for you. If you already hate dealing with health insurance claims,
imagine dealing with federal bureaucrats when you are ill. |
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matter of privacy, keep in mind what happened to "Joe the Plumber" when
the Ohio Secretary of State thought that it was a good idea to check up
on his records and leak information about him. Now imagine the
federal government having control over the personal medical records of
every American. Why wouldn't the ACLU and other
privacy advocates be as outraged about this proposal as about any past
efforts to develop a national ID card (as many other countries have) or
identification requirements for visitors or illegal aliens? This
could create a medical bureaucracy larger than the IRS, with lots of
private data about everybody from cradle to grave, as well as the power
to "guide" all healthcare providers. |
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are also billions in transfers to state and local governments, whether
to support their budget shortfalls in specific programs which may seem
to be justifiable (unemployment benefits, education, "shovel-ready"
projects, etc.) or as blatant pork spending. This spending comes
with federal strings attached - making the states even more reliant on
federal spending. It bails out the states with the worst financial
problems, at the expense of those which have been more responsible.
This reinforces bad state and local budget decisions, and reduces any
state influence over the growing federal government power. |
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this context, there can be no political "honeymoon". The actions
of the first few weeks of the Obama administration, both in the White
House and in Congress, raise very justifiable fears that voters have
been swept off their feet by false promises and cunning political
rhetoric, only to find themselves facing an unexpectedly abusive
relationship of unchecked federal power. It's already time to
scream loudly, and to threaten a swift divorce rather than a honeymoon
for those who are abusing our Constitutional rights. |
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