AN EMBARRASSING TREND: “As they left town for Christmas, Congress passed an unprecedented end-of-the-year appropriations bill with billions in wasteful spending designed principally to benefit incumbent members of Congress. This bill includes thousands of self-serving Member-directed spending projects and displays total disregard for both legislative process and the Constitution…
“The 3,417-page bill (34 pounds) was dropped barely 20 hours before final consideration by the House. It included 9,170 member-directed spending projects. Over 300 of these had never been made public, seen by rank-and-file Members, or passed by either House. Combined with the 2,161 passed earlier, Members gave themselves a total of 11,331 self-serving projects, costing Americans over $20 billion this year…
“This legislation continues an embarrassing trend in government pork-barrel spending, funneling untold billions into pet projects designed to reelect incumbents. Most such projects are not requested, or even supported, by the departments obligated to deliver them. Many are outright corrupt — directing funds to members’ contributors, former staffers, and even family members.”
- Rep. John Shadegg, Arizona Republican, 1/11/08
THE WRONG STUFF
“The bottom line is that I served 12 years with him (Sen. John McCain), 6 years in the United States Senate as leader, one of the leaders of the Senate - the number-3 leader - who had the responsibility of trying to put together the conservative agenda, and almost at every turn on domestic policy, John McCain was not only against us, but leading the charge on the other side.
“…I’m concerned (that if McCain is elected) we’d have a president whose first reaction would be to go to the other side to solve a problem instead of trying to find like-minded Republicans to come up with solutions. There is nothing worse than having a Democratic Congress and a Republican president who acts like a Democrat in matters that are very important to conservatives.”
- Former Sen. Rick Santorum in an interview on Mark Levin’s radio show
REAGAN AND THE MARRIAGE AMENDMENT
“No one will ever know for sure, but given his principles and intellectual courage, one could imagine why Reagan might also have found fault with the ‘Marriage Amendment’ to the Constitution supported by some Republicans including George W. Bush.
“Reagan saw the Constitution as a brilliant document because it does not outline what the citizenry cannot do; rather it stipulates what government cannot do. It is a mechanical document of negative governance. The Marriage Amendment runs contrary to the principles of the Constitution and is offensive both intellectually and historically, like the silly proposal to ban flag burning.
“The issue is moot until the Supreme Court takes up the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which preserves federalism in marriage. The simple solution to prevent gay marriages in America is for Congress to regulate the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, so that no appeal of the DOMA could be heard. DOMA was passed by the Congress and signed by Bill Clinton for the express purpose of allowing the states to regulate marriage. But this solution is less attractive politically to those who wish to fire up the Christian troops through a brawl over amending the Constitution.
“True conservatives believe deeply in the rights and privacy of all citizens. We scratch our heads when we see a political party so out of whack that it calls for overturning Roe and sending it back to the states for adjudication, but wonder why those very same states are not capable of deciding their own marriage laws. The contradiction defies logic.”
- Craig Shirley, author of “Reagan’s Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started it All”
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“In 1980, a reporter asked Ronald Reagan for his view of government. He simply and elegantly replied that the role of government was to protect us from each other and not to protect us from ourselves. No Reaganite - no real conservative - would even think of banning smoking in America.”
- Craig Shirley, author of “Reagan’s Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started it All”
Posted on January 15th, 2008 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: National
and yet Reagan raised taxes and increased programs while he was chief executive…odd, people don’t recall the real reagan.