No More Trough Sloppers!

Now that the Republicans have elected their leadership for the next two years, the blogosphere’s pundits are weighing in. Is this person the right one for the job, does that one have charisma, will this one manage to keep his foot out of his mouth and so on. The pundits all talk about the Republican leadership advancing our ideas. I would suggest that this is semi-delusional. From reading their blogs, listening to the talk shows and perusing editorials, I’ve gotten the notion that the center-right is in favor of smaller government. Stripping away the rhetoric and looking at the facts, neither party is in favor of that. It's up to us to change that.

The Federal government is spending more and more each year. Over the last two years the Republicans have controlled the legislature and the executive branch and the spending has just gone up and up and up. Right now, the Federal government is spending every tax dollar that comes in, spending all of the retirement “savings” money that comes in and is borrowing yet more money and spending that. All of this is being done in the middle of a sound economy and a historically inexpensive war.

It doesn’t work at the individual level and it doesn’t work at the national level. If a person spends their 401K and runs up their credit cards, then they can hope to die before all the bills come due and just leave the mess to their heirs. There is no such out for a profligate government. That debt just keeps getting higher and the day when we’ll need those retirement savings just keeps getting closer. And what are we talking about? John Boehner and Trent Lott.

Who cares about them? We need to focus on public opinion, not politicians. The biggest problem we face is not Trent Lott devouring both shoes at the same time, but how we will educate our fellow citizens about the fiscal cliff we are racing towards. There is no indication that Trent Lott and his cronies see any of this as a problem. They may say that when they come and give speeches to conservative groups, but they don’t behave like it matters to them at all.

The politicians will do whatever gets them votes. Until we manage to raise the awareness of the general population the politicians on both sides will continue to slop the trough with money we can’t afford.

I’m still trying to get Persuasion Tuesdays started to work out how we can change public opinion about such issues, but I’m open to any and all other ideas. In the meantime, I’ve turned off all the talk radio stations except Hugh and listen to the sports stations instead. Political talk radio is just the same thing over and over with no goal other than electing one set of trough-sloppers over the other.

Bloggers posting about the leadership elections include Dean Barnett, Mary Katherine Ham, Carol Platt Liebau, our own Vicar of Victory, Captain Ed (who gets close, but still doesn't address the real issue), Asylum Pundits, Confederate Yankee, Suitably Flip, Blogs of War, Webloggin and many others.