Big problems call for big government(Columbus Dispatch, May 24, 2010)We have seen the devastating oil slick get larger and closer to the Louisiana coast. At the same time, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called for more federal assistance. This is the same Jindal who called for lower taxes and complained about a federal government that was too large.
Conservatives perennially call for lower taxes, but where do they think the government gets the money to help states such as Louisiana? The Republican Party has chosen a strategy of calling for reduced government when out of power and then expanding government when in power. Republicans say they want the budget balanced, but they run up huge debts when in power. Former Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both did it.
Three of the largest contributors to federal budget deficits are Bush's tax cuts, his Medicare prescription-drug-benefits program and his questionable war in Iraq. It is difficult to understand how there can be a significant segment of the American people that does not realize this Republican hypocrisy.
At the same time that Republicans are expanding government, they are trying to make it impotent. Remember “Heckuva job, Brownie” (former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown)? If you don't want an agency to succeed, you defund it and you put incompetent people in charge.
When a huge hurricane devastates several states and the response is poor, Republicans say that government does not work and departments should be combined or eliminated. All this is done while increasing spending.
Hurricane Katrina and this oil slick should be enough to show that we need the federal government to be efficient and large enough to handle natural emergencies.
Remember in November the party trying to make life in these United States better for you and for your children.
JOHN LYTLE
Columbus
Now
here's a guy who really gets it!