Our election season in 2010 put this question into my mind, and it is a pertinent one. In my college and law school years, I proudly counted myself among the Republicans, leading a Law School Republican chapter and working with/on a number of campaigns. After 1994, I became concerned about the social conservative/Christian Coalition influences in the party, and jumped ship to the Democrats in an effort to find a more socially liberal umbrella. Frankly, I've never been comfortable under that umbrella either, and continued to vote for primarily Republican candidates until 2008. The Obama agenda and crushing deficit, however, leave me yearning for something better. I venture a guess that there are a number of people evaluating their own political existence this morning as well.
The Republicans tell us that there is room for a social moderate in the party, and point to the Log Cabin Republicans, the Republican Main Street Coalition and the "It's My Party Too" factions of the party as the safe havens for the moderates. Frankly, I believe those factions are closets, not safe havens, and with the surge of Tea Party candidates, many of us may be better off locked in those closets. Perhaps a better question for the Republicans: is there room for a fiscal conservative in the party?
The Democrats also tell us a comforting story - of course there is room for fiscal conservatives under the Democratic Party umbrella. Well, the Blue Dog Democrats may be the one group of Democrats that advocate for fiscal conservatism. Unfortunately, the Blue Dogs (who took quite a hit tonight) have absolutely no ultimate control over the Democrat spending binge.
So what to do? Change my registration again? Register independent and not vote in primaries? None of these options really excite me much.
Instead, perhaps we can do something more constructive. Write editorials. Write to your Congressman. Review your local budget. Advocate for causes. Volunteer for campaigns, local and otherwise. Step out of your shell and share your ideals. That is the way to effectuate change...slow, but effective change.
Amen my friend! Bill
ReplyDeleteI would concur that spending needs to be reigned in and we do need to adopt a new fiscal conservative approach to government. I think that there are many competing priorities for the government dollar and the ones that get funded have the best lobbyist.
ReplyDeleteI had often fantasized about what the country would be like without organized lobbyists. Would LA have never ripped out their light rail in favor of freeway-building? Would we never have a discussion on offshore drilling because the oil industry was out-competed by less-expensive solar or wind energies? Would individuals loose access to their elected officials as well? Would family farms have shut down because there would be no subsidies?
The Pollyanna in me would want corporation to pay their fair share for their existence - meaning the inability to externalize any cost. It was often quoted in MBA-school that corporate taxes were popular with the general public because corporations don't vote. I think that is false. Marketing machines would be engaged and the product that you paid $3.00 for yesterday would suddenly cost $19.95 and 14,000,000 jobs would be lost in the process. A corporation now has millions of votes.
I would want to start cutting spending by phasing out subsidies - sorry Exxon and Chevron, your balance sheets indicate that you don't need them. I would cut funding to organizations like the WTO, IMF and World Bank. There are reasons why many counties want nothing to do with them. I would bill companies for environmental restoration - Coal companies, if you are taking off the top of a mountain to get coal, you need to put it back when you are done and deal with all you lead and arsenic and whatever else you uncovered. Homeowners, if you are buying a $6,000,000 mansion, you don't need to write off your interest and property taxes from your federal return you make enough.
Of course, I know that none of this will ever happen. We will cut social services and education. We will shift the burden of programs from the federal level to the states. We will build more schools and roads in Iraq and Afghanistan than in the US. The states will rape and pillage their higher education budgets, the quality of education will decline and we will get an uninformed electorate who can only vote for the people with the best TV ads or the pretties billboards - maybe we already have that.
So, I guess in my most optimistic view, nothing will get done with government.