What is the difference?


When Republicans spend like Democrats, why should voters believe them?
Dick Armey takes his party to task at OpinionJournal.com.

At the national level, where President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress are presiding over the largest expansion of government since LBJ's Great Society, things are no better. Our political base expects elected leaders to cut both tax rates and spending, because they know that the real tax burden is reflected in the overall size of government.

Instead we have embarrassing spectacles like the 2005 highway bill. Costing $295 billion, it is 35% larger than the last transportation bill, fueled by 6,371 earmarks doled out to favored political constituencies. By comparison, the 1987 highway bill was vetoed by Ronald Reagan for containing relatively few (152) earmarks. Overall, even excluding defense and homeland security spending, the growth rate of discretionary spending adjusted for inflation is at a 40-year high.

All of our leaders are complicit in this spending spree. President Bush has yet to veto a single spending bill. The House leadership refuses to rein in appropriators, claiming, as one of them preposterously put it, that "there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget."

Although the Democrats shouldn't escape their part in this debacle, the Republicans have dropped the ball. For all the claims about being the party who lower taxes, ten years of Republican majorities have delivered higher taxes.

With that in mind, I think it's time to admit that a political party by it's very nature CAN'T keep a lid on government. Political parties want to expand their influence and will expand government to do so. Look at history. It has always been individuals who have reformed government and shown leadership.

You can't be a leader and follow a political platform set by committee.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sun - December 4, 2005 at 04:44 PM  Tag


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