Junto Boys

PORK REPORTS

I linked this blog on the left, but I forgot to mention them here. The Heritage Foundation wrote a great list of government programs that should be cut last year and I wrote my Republican congressman about it. He didn't bother to respond.

Pork reports is an answer to Tom Delay's absurd statement that the government is lean. This blog is trying to get everyone to write their congressman about this uncontrolled spending. They have some great examples of nonsense that local government would never waste their own money on.

I listened to Neil Boortz this morning and he makes a good case for the implementation of his fair tax proposal. His recipe sounds like a great one, but I think the size of government is even a greater problem. If the government is going to spend two trillion dollars a year, no fair tax proposal is going to solve the problem of how much they will have to collect.

We need to hit them with a one-two punch.

Here's my letter to Congressman, Ric Keller:

Dear Ric,

I’m interested in your thoughts on Tom Delay’s assertion that the government is lean and there are no more spending cuts to make. It seems like every year Washington takes a bigger chunk of money out of the private sector to finance the kinds of things that localities wouldn’t waste their own money on. The recent transportation Bill is full of examples.

Delay’s statement bothers me because once Republicans resemble Democrats in operation, it will only take more handsome or well spoken Democrats to come along and grab power. Eisenhower had a chance to slash the New Deal and his lost opportunity gave way to Kennedy. Bush 41 broke his tax pledge and it led to Bill Clinton.

The Republican Congress is headed for the same fall if they cannot show leadership on the reduction of the size of government. It’s the Democrats that need to cast themselves in gold and be worshipped by the people unwilling to help themselves. Republicans need to represent productive people. It’s been more than ten years since the Gingrich revolution and more than four years since we won back the White House and I can’t think of a single government program that we cut equal to the size of the Medicare drug benefit.

The Republicans have been given a pass because of 9-11 and the war, but Americans have short memories and the Republican inability to be fiscally conservative will give an opening to Democrats to use the same rhetoric that Newt once used. They’ll give the credit for the 90s surpluses to Clinton not Congress. What will a Republican Congress have to run on then?

I appreciate your support for tax cuts, Ric. I hope you share these other concerns with me. What government programs do you think we should cut and how do you plan to introduce them? I have some ideas if you don't.

Tom