Article: They Are Who We Thought They Were!

Anyone who is a football fan surely remembers Arizona Cardinal's coach Dennis
Green and his legendary
post-game rant after a 2006 loss to the Chicago Bears. The Cardinals had
forced six Chicago turnovers and led 20-0 in the third quarter but they then
gifted the Bears two touchdowns on turnovers and one on a punt return to lose a
game in which Chicago's offense only crossed midfield once. In the subsequent
press conference Coach Green was asked what his impressions of the undefeated
Bears were. Green responded by shouting, "They are who we thought they were, and
we let them of the hook!", he then immediately stormed out of the media room,
surely aware that he would be fired at the end of the season.
This
coming November 7, Republicans will probably find themselves wanting to hire
Dennis Green to give their post-election concession speech. For Green it should
be a piece of cake, he won't have to alter it the slightest bit from 2006. Let's
face it, Barack Obama is who we thought he was and by failing to offer a
credible alternative, Republicans will have let him off the hook. The past four
years have been the equivalent of six-turnover game for the President but his
opponents are still going to fumble away victory and our future because of their
own inability to actually practice any of the principles they constantly
preach.
To steal a phrase from Coach Green, the Democratic Party, for
the most part, governs exactly the way they say that they will govern. Democrats
believe in a big, expansive role for government but, to their credit, they also
believe in paying for it through higher taxation. Their approach to government,
although destructive, has at least been honest. The Republican Party, on the
other hand, has been preaching about limiting the size of government for the
last thirty years but has never been willing to actually put their rhetoric into
practice. In fact, the last three Republican presidents were bigger spenders
than most of their Democratic contemporaries. When this failure is combined with the
Republican's religious policy of lowering taxes, the sad truth emerges. The
modern Republican Party has been vastly more destructive to our country's future
than their Democratic counterparts. Furthermore, their policy of spending big
while not wanting to pay for it themselves represents the most irresponsible and
morally bankrupt form of governing our nation has ever seen.

Contrary to what most of the mainstream Republican Party claims, pulling our
country back from the precipice is not about winning the next election. There is
fundamentally no difference between the way Barack Obama governs and the
way Romney, Santorum, or Gingrich will govern. From Obama's standpoint that's
okay with me. He's a Democrat and I expect him to govern that way. Republicans,
on the other hand, should be offering an alternative that's completely different
from the Democrats. Anything less amounts to standing on the deck of the Titanic
arguing over the bar tab. Putting our country back on the right track isn't just
about having a Republican win the next election. The first thing the Republican
Party has to do is reform itself and actually be willing to implement policies
that match the rhetoric. Once they represent a truly credible alternative to
Democrats then can they worry about winning elections.
If Republicans
make this change our whole political atmosphere would be vastly improved. The
Republicans would now be able to credibly put forward a plan of limited
government and lower taxes in opposition to the Democratic plan of big
government and high taxes. The whole process would be much more honest. This
would force the Democrats to actually address how they intend to pay for their
big government. In order to raise the neccessary revenues they will have to
raise taxes on everybody, including the forty-seven percent who currently pay no
income tax. Some of those voters may decide they would rather keep their money
than have more government, moving them over to the Republican Party.

Whatever the results of any given election, the government that emerges from
that election must be fully paid for by the voters who demanded it and not put
on the backs of future generations, who are not entitled to speak for
themselves. While we may differ on what type of government we want, I believe it
is immoral to postpone paying for it, no matter the size. To tell our children,
who have no choice in the matter, that they have to pay our bills is
unacceptable. There can be an honest debate whether we want to be fiscally
liberal or fiscally conservative, but there should be no debate over whether or
not we have to be fiscally responsible.
I believe that the high cost,
big-government approach will ultimately be harmful to this nation's long term
prosperity and the best hope to change this is for the Republican Party to offer
a credible small-government alternative. In order for this to happen, the real
change has to come inside the Republican tent. Democrats have always
been Democrats. However, in order to represent the credible alternative the
Republican Party, to paraphrase Coach Green, has to actually become who they
thought they were. Otherwise the Democrats win even when they lose.