Foley Not The sole Cause Of Republican Woes
Fri Oct 20, 2006 at 11:23:31 AM PDT
Several republicans have started to blame Mark Foley for their upcoming losses on Nov. 7th. They are partly correct, the Foley scandal was the last straw for many conservatives; however the lion's share of the blame has to go to president Bush. The basic principles of what conservatives stand for are sound. Reduced federal spending, less government involvement in our daily lives, keep taxes as low as possible. It is hard to argue against any of them. The problem for the republicans has been the way the president has ignored all of the conservative principles.
Federal spending is absolutely out of control, with the unnecessary invasion of Iraq completely unfunded by incoming tax money, a Medicare drug benefit with no spending limit that benefits only the drug companies and is also completely unfunded and expected to cost somewhere around a trillion dollars. These costs are just added to the federal deficit and will have to be paid by future tax dollars. The republicans hate hearing it but when Bill Clinton left office there was a budget surplus and the congress was on a pay as you go budget. If a program was going to be implemented it had to be completely funded in order to pass. If upon hearing that the only response you have is to bash Clinton then you aren't serious about winning elections.
As far as a smaller government bush has increased the size of the federal government dramatically most notably with Homeland security, a bloated waste of taxpayer dollars that is inefficient as are all huge government programs. The republicans continually crow about Homeland security preventing attacks against the U.S. but very little evidence of that has been seen. There is yet to be a successful prosecution of a single terror suspect arrested in the U.S. after 9/11. The arrests in Miami are a good example of this. The FBI informant was leading the suspected terrorists by the nose, suggesting that they take an oath to Al Qaeda. The FBI was in effect manufacturing fake terrorists.
Bush also threw out less government in peoples lives by ushering in an era of domestic spying, allowing federal agencies to wiretap American citizens without first obtaining a warrant. The republican congress went even further by directly involving themselves in the case of Terry Schiavo. Senate Majority leader Bill Frist went so far as to diagnose Ms. Schiavo without ever having seen her. There has never been such blatant meddling in the life of a private citizen's life as by congress in the Schiavo case.
Mark Foley did make an impact on voters, but many people, including prominent conservatives, were already bemoaning the abandonment of conservative principles. The republican congress abandoned the ideals that got them elected and they are about to pay for it.
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