Here’s a big surprise. A new Pew Research Center poll finds that 4 out of 5 Americans don’t trust Washington. I wonder why? Could it be that we’ve been lied to way too many times? Maybe it’s the $1.5 trillion deficit this year or the $12 trillion debt.
It’s not all the Democrats’ fault, of course. Republicans have to shoulder at least some of the blame. The latest Pig Book of pork barrel spending from Citizens Against Government Waste lists several Republicans as big abusers of earmarks. Yet if the truth were known the last time we had a balanced budget was under Newt and the boys when Republicans controlled congress.
Something happened to the Republicans once George W. Bush got into office. He started off as the conservative’s hope of another Ronald Reagan. By the end of his tenure he was the manifestation of his daddy’s unrequited second term.
Bush managed to hoodwink some otherwise solid conservatives into following his socialist plan to spend our way out of a manufactured mortgage mess. His nearly $1 trillion bank bailout was the very antithesis of the Republican Revolution of 1994. Bush saddled up the socialist horse that Obama is now flogging down the home stretch.
One of those who helped Bush with the saddle is Congressman Zach Wamp of Tennessee who now seeks to be the state’s governor. Although he holds a lifetime rating of 92 with the American Conservative Union, his inexplicable vote for the bailout puts him squarely in the hot soup of socialist solutions. Wamp, who seems to be morphing into George W. Bush in his speech and mannerisms on the campaign trail, apparently has morphed into “W” politically, transformed from his roots as one of Speaker Newt’s freshman class in 1995 that came to Washington to change it. Looks like it was the other way around.
Keynesian economics is nothing new in Washington. There are simply those who don’t fully trust our capitalist system. They believe the government must step in to iron out the wrinkles. Fact is this whole business of “too big to fail” was a farce. There’s no such thing as too big to fail. When banks fail they leave behind assets that are gobbled up by institutions that weren’t stupid enough to fall into the same traps. These assets have real value and the market will right itself without the heavy hand of the government.
But, back to the poll. Most Americans don’t trust our federal government and with darn good reason. Sure, the Republicans have made mistakes but, by and large, they were mistakes made by Republicans who weren’t true conservatives. See, when you strip away the party labels and get down to the ideology you’ll find that conservatism works, liberalism fails. It’s just that simple.
I sincerely hope the Republican hierarchy is listening. It wasn’t Rockefeller Republicans who transformed this country. It was Reagan Republicans. Being a Reagan Republican means you not only pay lip service to capitalism you walk the walk. Don’t sit there and say the free enterprise system is superior to socialism then vote for socialism. Let the markets work. Yes, even if that means businesses fail.
It’s not that Republicans should embrace failure; it’s that they should embrace reality. Businesses fail. Mortgages are foreclosed upon. Quantity doesn’t change the basic principles of capitalism. If we bail out banks and car companies, why not burger joints and bicycle shops? Either you believe in capitalism or you don’t. If you don’t fully believe in capitalism then you don’t need to be seeking office this year; certainly not as a Republican.
