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The Conservative War on Freedom

Goodpasture

Well-known member
Here's an excerpted report from the libertarian Cato Institute... the truth about the Republican Party:

The Conservative War on Freedom
We can fondly look back to a time when Republicans talked a good game on libertarian issues. They professed fealty to state rights, spoke of shrinking the government, preserving individual liberty, and embracing fiscal responsibility.

George Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson. Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush is still the biggest-spending president in 30 years.

Total government spending grew by 33 percent during Bush’s first term. The federal budget as a share of the economy grew from 18.5 percent of GDP on Clinton’s last day in office to 20.3 percent by the end of Bush’s first term.

This spending is all the more remarkable given that at one time Republicans controlled all three branches of government.

The Republican Congress enthusiastically assisted the budget bloat. Inflation-adjusted spending on the combined budgets of the 101 largest programs they vowed to eliminate in 1995 has grown by 27 percent.

We are seeing the new Republican governance at work.

On social issues, we are seeing a government aggressively seeking to meddle in people’s bedrooms, doctor’s offices, and churches. They want to dictate when life begins, when life ends, and which consenting adults can marry. Look at the Schiavo fiasco.

The nation’s current wars have given conservatives yet more excuses to make a mockery of the protections we supposedly enjoy under the Bill of Rights, from the PATRIOT Act, to NSA spying on American citizens, to violations of habeas corpus. Republicans have abandoned even more fundamental Constitutional principles, such as “separation of powers” in their quest to consolidate power in the executive branch.

The Republican Party isn't committed to anyone’s personal freedoms.
 

woranch

Well-known member
Goodpasture said:
Here's an excerpted report from the libertarian Cato Institute... the truth about the Republican Party:

The Conservative War on Freedom
We can fondly look back to a time when Republicans talked a good game on libertarian issues. They professed fealty to state rights, spoke of shrinking the government, preserving individual liberty, and embracing fiscal responsibility.

George Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson. Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush is still the biggest-spending president in 30 years.

Total government spending grew by 33 percent during Bush’s first term. The federal budget as a share of the economy grew from 18.5 percent of GDP on Clinton’s last day in office to 20.3 percent by the end of Bush’s first term.

This spending is all the more remarkable given that at one time Republicans controlled all three branches of government.

The Republican Congress enthusiastically assisted the budget bloat. Inflation-adjusted spending on the combined budgets of the 101 largest programs they vowed to eliminate in 1995 has grown by 27 percent.

We are seeing the new Republican governance at work.

On social issues, we are seeing a government aggressively seeking to meddle in people’s bedrooms, doctor’s offices, and churches. They want to dictate when life begins, when life ends, and which consenting adults can marry. Look at the Schiavo fiasco.

The nation’s current wars have given conservatives yet more excuses to make a mockery of the protections we supposedly enjoy under the Bill of Rights, from the PATRIOT Act, to NSA spying on American citizens, to violations of habeas corpus. Republicans have abandoned even more fundamental Constitutional principles, such as “separation of powers” in their quest to consolidate power in the executive branch.

The Republican Party isn't committed to anyone’s personal freedoms.



CNN pointed out back in June that Democrats’ did not appear to be keeping one of the biggest promises they made to the American people since taking control of Congress.

Despite the new Democratic congressional leadership’s promise of “openness and transparency” in the budget process, a CNN survey of the House found it nearly impossible to get information on lawmakers’ pet projects.

[…]

“We will bring transparency and openness to the budget process and to the use of earmarks,” Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi said in December 2006, “and we will give the American people the leadership they deserve.”

But you didn’t really expect the new boss to be any different than the old boss, did you?

Because, as it turns out, the Dems had no intention of keeping this campaign promise.

Despite the Democrats’ pledge to get control of their addiction to wasteful spending, their mountain of pork-barrel provisions has prevented Congress from passing its appropriations bills for fiscal year 2008. Exhibit A is a Labor, Health and Human Services and Education bill taken up by the Senate last week that was filled to the brim with pork (also known as earmarks). This “minibus” bill was engineered by Democrats attempting to draw just enough votes to make it veto-proof.

Last week, Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., one of the stellar anti-pork warriors in Congress, said this about the bill: “The Democrats have made a joke of the ethics bill as they packed this ‘minibus’ with thousands of pet projects. They have shown their (so-called anti-pork) rules to be laughable and ineffective, as they continue to spend millions on secret earmarks and hide their pork from public scrutiny.”
All told, this spending package contained at least 2,200 earmarks worth more than $1 billion. Among them, a $1 million earmark for the Thomas Daschle Center for Public Service and Representative Democracy at South Dakota State University, named for the former Senate Democratic leader.

Democrats often go to great lengths to disguise what their earmarks are actually for, making their intentions sound far more important than they are. A $300,000 item that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., inserted into the Labor-HHS-Education spending bill for a museum called Exploratorium, which promotes “teacher recruitment, retention, and improvement initiative” (http://www.exploratorium.edu/).

But the Exploratorium’s Web site describes the museum as “a collage of hundreds of interactive exhibits in the areas of science, art, and human perception” Its mission is “to create a culture of learning through innovative environments, programs and tools that help people nurture their curiosity about the world around them.”

Pelosi’s pet project has been given more than $33 million in federal-funding earmarks and grants over the past six years. “Should federal taxpayers be subsidizing a wealthy city’s museum during a time of deficit spending?” asked the Senate Republican Conference’s Pork Report?
 

Mike

Well-known member
Don't waste your time Woranch, As GP wanted us to believe.... this piece was from the CATO Institute and showed their opinions, in fact it was not. This ilk and was published in their "unbound" repertoire, to which most any idiot from the street can contribute. :roll:

The writer is the publisher of the Daily Kos, and is a self-fulfilled "Democratic Libertarian" which is probably equal to being a full fledged "Socialist".
 

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