Looping the Hen

A Wasted 10 Years

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

When Newt Gingrich was booted after the Contract With America, the Repub's appeared to have lost whatever guiding principles they had. Both parties are corrupt, however I would contend that in '94 and '96 the Republicans were not quite so corrupt. By 2000 and having control of both houses, they became the machine, just like the Democrats were when swept out of office by a rising tide of discontent.

All I know is that as a conservative (Libertarian), having Republican dominion over the executive and legislative branches never transformed into passing laws I wanted to see. They didn't make the tax cuts permanent, didn't repeal the inheritance tax, didn't fix Social Insecurity, and didn't tackle the US's immigration issues. On top of that, they took us back deep into the red and deficit spending with huge Democrat-like social programs.

If I wanted social programs, I would vote Democratic. What I want is the mythical small government Republicans promised once upon a time. I support the war, I support fighting terrorism using most of the methods attacked over the last several years, and for me this election had nothing to do with that.

The GOP brought this on themselves, and I am sure there is much handwringing going on behind the scenes, with folks wondering how it could come to this. I'll leave those folks with the words of JFK (no, not John Kerry); they can take a look at the items left on the table they could have acted upon and know why they lost. They mostly got the war on terror right; but they got everything else wrong. Had they simply done something, their losses might not have been so bad.

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long range risks and costs of comfortable inaction. -John F. Kennedy