Because They are Self-Centered Not Right of Center

Fox News recently reported that the National Republican Congressional Committee fund raising has fallen well short of their projections and of their requirements for supporting national congressional campaigns (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/03/gop-financial-struggles-jeopardize-house-election-bids/). The Republican leadership laments that this shortfall threatens potential significant Republican gains in the November 2010 elections.

Republican strategists doubtlessly are struggling to understand why donors are not stepping up when so much of the electorate clearly opposes President Obama’s and the Democratic Congressional majority’s initiatives regarding the economy, energy policy, environmental policy, and organized labor policy. Poll after poll has found that the majority of American voters consider themselves centrists or right of center and yet, those same people have little enthusiasm for the “conservative” Republican Party.

There is no mystery here. We the people have completely lost confidence in the political process. Both parties by their actions have demonstrated that purported espoused etiology clearly ranks below self interests and special interests. Congress’s wanton spending on pet earmarks, trips abroad, bureaucracy expansion, etc makes plain their complete disregard for our hard earned tax payer money. How are they any better than third world dictators who pillage their citizenry? In fact considering the current unfunded liability of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, our politicians have far surpassed those totalitarian regimes in devising a system to take from those that have yet to be born.

At the end of this past year, while average Americans continued to struggle in this economy, Congress gave all federal employees a raise. In earlier days, we referred to government employees as public servants because historically compensation for public service lagged behind private sector positions. Now those “public servants” belong to unions and have salaries and benefits that exceed those of the private sector; even as their “employers” (local, state and Federal governments) fall further and further into debt.

We desperately need to return to those traditional American free market principles, personal freedoms, and values that made our great land the global economic powerhouse and bastion of freedom. If we do not, our country’s and our childrens' futures will continue to slide down the slippery slope to European style socialism, which can only result in economic insecurity, national and global insecurity, and individual dependency and unhappiness. The Republican Party must stop paying lip service to those principles, freedoms, and values but rather incorporate them in legislation to address the significant challenges facing out country. Yet this can not occur until the Republican establishment first regains our trust and reforms the political process by working in earnest for term limits, fiscally responsible stewardship of taxpayer (present and future) monies, and absolute transparency and accountability in government.