Irreponsible Politics

I am a big believer in fiscal conservatism.  I try to be frugal with my spending and I think I generally succeed (my rainy day fund has about 6 months expenses in it and I have a nice sized retirement fund for someone my age).  People who don't manage their money well and are living paycheck to paycheck even when they have decent paying jobs are being irresponsible as far as I'm concerned. 

So I get very frustrated when trying to figure out who to vote for because neither party seems to really represent fiscal conservatism.  Supposedly republicans are the party of fiscal conservatism but lets look at two recent examples to see why this isn't the case.

The first is Ronald Reagan.  During his first year in office the US ran a deficit of 79 Billion.  For his 3rd thru 8th year our country consistently ran deficits of 150 billion or more.  Also we were in a recession for most of his first two years so this increase in deficit spending after we are out of the recession is even less understandable. 

The second is George W Bush.  During most of Clinton's second term the US actually ran a surplus and according to the budget office we were expected to run a 5 trillion surplus over the next 10 years.  During Bush's first year we ran a 120 Billion surplus, however in all 7 years after that we always ran a deficit of at least 150 Billion.  How is this being fiscally conservative?

Democrats aren't any better at cutting deficits.  Just look at the trillion dollar deficits that Obama has run.  The deficits were likely bigger because of the recession but I don't see how he would have reduced them with his policies either.  Democrats generally like costly government programs, and spending lots of money even if you pay for it with extra taxes is not fiscally conservative.

The only time during my life that the government was acting mostly responsible was during Bill Clinton's second term.  The Republicans controlled congress with a Democratic president and together they adopted pay as you go policies so that all new programs were paid for with either spending cuts elsewhere or tax increases.  This is the only time in recent history that we ran a surplus.

While I'd really like to blame both political parties for this mess I think that the average voter is the one really at fault.  Many voters in this country vote for whoever promises them the most benefits.  Many people vote republican because they are hoping for bigger tax cuts.  Others vote democratic because they think the government programs will be a bigger help to them.  I truly believe that it is a minority of voters who really want to hold the parties responsible for keeping down the deficit and these voters are not unified in a single party (I don't have hard statistics for this and I don't know how you would get them).

So at the end of the day the same people who live paycheck to paycheck and max out their credit cards elect politicians who max out our government's credit card because they are all more worried about today than the futures.

Some of these people who are more worried about today are in an understandable position where they are having trouble keeping their house and putting food on the table.  The others just annoy me because they are destroying our country's future by enabling these irresponsible politicians.

Why voting pro-life is a bad idea.

My goal in this post is to show you that Republicans do not really care about abortions at all.  They only care about getting the votes of people who hate abortions.

The moment that I realized that Republicans didn't care about stopping abortions occurred during George W Bush's presidency.  At one point Republicans controlled the presidency, both houses of congress and Republican presidents had appointed 6 of the 9 supreme court justices.  This is the kind of majority that pro-life people had dreamed of.  Republicans, the supposedly pro-life party, controlled all 3 branches of government.

So what major abortion legislation did they pass with all of this political muscle?  All we got were 2 rather small legislative efforts that did almost nothing to protect the unborn.

The first was Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act which bans a rare form of abortion.  Sadly this bill effected less than 1% of all abortions and most of the effected abortions were just forced to use different methods that are just as deadly to the child.  This may have prevented a small number of abortions but failed to address more than 99% of all abortions in this country.

The second was Unborn Victims of Violence Act which made killing an unborn child a crime if you were committing another violent crime at the time.  So if you assaulted a pregnant woman you could get charged for hurting her unborn child as well.  This prevented no abortions but did make it look like Republicans were trying to "protect the unborn."

So when the Republicans had the chance to pass a major law to prevent abortions the American public got nothing significant.  If the Republicans had passed a major abortion law and it had gotten killed in the courts for some reason I would find that regrettable but I would at least give them some credit for trying.  They didn't even try.

So next time you consider voting pro-life remember that the Republicans have no intention of trying to stop abortions.  Please feel free to vote for Republicans for other reasons if you want just don't deceive yourself into believing that you are protecting the unborn.  Republicans want your pro-life votes but don't do anything to deserve them. 


Please note: The author of this article is pro-life and does not think that the Republicans are the only ones lying in politics but the Democrats appear to be doing a better job supporting their pro-choice people than the job the Republicans are doing for their pro-life people.