The Reckoning

Let’s just lay it out there: The Democrats in the Senate have ignored the will of the people and are going to transform our nation without their support or consent. They ignored conservatives. They ignored independents. They ignored liberals, leftists, union bosses, and “progressives”. The only people that got what they wanted were the appropriators and power grabbers that occupy our nation’s most prestigious club.

Principles were set aside. Values were cast overboard in exchange for billions in favors. The real priorities of supposed Democratic budget hawks have been revealed. “Pro-Life” Democrats tossed care into the wind over federal funding for abortions, bought off with massive government payouts to their home states. With your money, by the way. Your money.

There will be a reckoning for this. The American people recognize they have been duped. They did not vote for this. In fact, they were told they were voting for the opposite of this. Obama campaigned on no mandates for health insurance coverage. Now, we will have mandates. He campaigned on no new taxes on the middle class. Now, we will have $400 billion+ in new taxes, much of which will fall onto the middle class. That’s not even mentioning that if you aren’t covered by health insurance for even one month, you will be fined $495 or 2% of your income, whichever is greater. It only gets worse from there with taxes on everything big and small, from medical devices to tanning salons.

There will be no getting away with this type of tyranny by committee. The American people are not happy with this turn of events, not happy at all, and they will express their anger, their sense of betrayal, at the ballot box in 2010. But that must be just the beginning. It’s time for the American people to stand up and demand massive, permanent, and complete change. Our country simply can’t afford to keep accelerating down this path of tax, spend, and borrow. When Republicans behaved this way they were rightly punished in 2006 and 2008. Now the Democrats are back in power, and nobody can drive a country off a fiscal cliff like liberals can.

It’s not just the health care bill. It’s the $787 billion failed “stimulus” and its smaller brother the year before. It’s the cap-and-tax trillion dollar knee-cap to our economy. It’s the billions shoveled into the auto industry to prop up failing labor unions who will just pour the money into more campaigns for Democrats next cycle. It’s the Card Check legislation that would cripple our nation’s struggling small businesses. It’s the $400 billion omnibus spending bill that continued this wild spending orgy as if nothing were wrong. It’s the refusal to reform already bankrupt programs like Social Security and Medicare when millions of American depend on them and we are fully aware they’re on a path to fiscal ruin. It’s the simple disdain for fiscal sanity that seems to pervade our nation’s capital. It’s the intentional myopia with regard to the looming financial crisis that our nation is steaming towards. It’s the almost purposeful accumulation of soon-to-be overwhelming debt, for which the yearly interest payments alone with eclipse cost of the entire failed “stimulus” bill.

It has to stop. If it doesn’t our nation will go bankrupt. Our people will slave away day after day just to pay the interest on the bills we’ve already rung up. Innovation will cease because no one will be able to afford R&D costs. Unemployment will skyrocket and our currency will be devalued.

Conservatives need to step forward. Stop wasting time chasing the fantasy of a third party. Re-take the Republican Party. Use it as the vessel to knock down the gates, and storm the castle. Our government is out of control, and we need to take it back. It’s forgotten that it derives its power from us, that it’s beholden to the people. Next year will be the beginning of the effort to re-take our country from the appropriators and the power-seekers, and redistribute that power back down to the people and their local governments. But, it will not end there. It can’t. The ship is too big to turn in just one push. This effort must be sustained and disciplined. It’s an effort to inject liberty and freedom back into the lives of everyday citizens, and it must continue into perpetuity or we will risk sliding back into the same position we’re in today.

It must be bold. No commitments to only slow the growth of government. We must cut spending in every non-vital area of government. Not just tiny and ineffective tax rebate checks once every so often, but large, long-term tax cuts that will encourage investment for the future and spur real, sustainable growth. Not the carved-out exceptions for this or that industry, but an across-the-board slash in corporate taxes that would allow companies to begin hiring and invest more money at home in America. Not just temporary fixes to Social Security and Medicare by raising taxes on the rich and hiking the retirement age, but actual reform of the programs that will solve the problem and allow seniors to sleep soundly at night not having to wonder if Congress is going to rob them of their retirement after they’ve paid their dues for decades.

This bold re-taking of America must begin now. Conservatives must become active within their local Republican Parties. This must be a ground-up effort, not just one driven by the old guard of the conservative movement. They certainly will be involved, and vital to the effort, but it must be the people who lead this push. Indeed, it’s already begun with the mass protests in cities around the country, but it has to evolve into something more. We will say “No!” as long as we have to, as long as the appropriators are in power. But then, we must seize power and implement our own agenda to restore liberty to the people and shut down this tit-for-tat system.

It’s time to get involved!