| . |
Editorial
The
Key to Real Reform
By Robert Maynard
With the Supreme Court decision
to strike down McCain-Feingold as posing a threat to the constitutional
right to free speech, one of the dominant themes in the upcoming election
season is sure to be the corruption of money in government. The first shot
in this salvo was fired by President Obama in his State of the Union address
when he called out the Supreme Court in criticism of this decision. While
this issue has always received a great deal of attention from perspective
candidates, pundits and the media, most of the attention to this issue
has been on symptoms of the problem. In trying to put a band aid on a symptom,
political leaders often pass laws that violate the right to free speech,
as was the case with the McCain-Feingold legislation. The real problem
is that political power is increasingly being centralized in our nation’s
capital. This centralization of political power is what is driving the
influence buying that is at the heart of the much-publicized campaign finance
and fundraising scandals. A good deal of the money flowing into the political
process from both groups and individuals is an attempt to influence the
government to grant favors or not to impose restrictions. The government’s
ever increasing ability to hand out rewards and punishments has groups
and individuals at each other’s throats as they fight over the favor of
government. Civility and cooperation are replaced by greed and envy as
we push each other out of the way in order ensure that we get our share
of the government provided gravy train. Under such circumstances civic
virtue and the compassionate community quickly become causalities in a
struggle to get government to take from our neighbor and give to us. If
we limited government’s ability to bribe us with our own, or our neighbor’s
tax money, the influence buying would disappear overnight.
We are putting an unheard
of amount of power in the hands of a small political class to affect just
about every aspect of our lives. Is it any wonder that the end result is
a political leadership that will do almost anything to stay in power? We
have all heard of the arrogance of political officials who make laws for
the rest of us but do not abide by those same laws. The political class
has come to see itself as above the common citizen. They wield a degree
of power that would have been the envy of ancient Roman Caesars. If we
are really serious about reforming this mess, we need to take a serious
look at our own role in enabling this behavior. In order to ensure that
we have an ethical government, we must start with ensuring ethical citizens.
On what criteria do we base our decision to support a candidate for political
office? Is it character and a commitment to support the fundamental principles
of government, or a promise to "bring home the bacon"? If it is the latter,
then we are contributing to the problem and will never see real reform
in government.
As pointed out by Citizens
Against Government Waste’s "20069 Congressional Pig Book Summary":
"The outrage
of millions of taxpayers following the $700 billion bank bailout and the
$787 billion stimulus bill did not stop Congress from passing and President
Obama from signing a bloated $410 billion Omnibus Appropriations Act in
March. With the subsequent approval of the President’s budget, the
national debt will triple over the next 10 years. That leaves plenty
of opportunities for pork to remain pervasive in the nation’s capital.
This behavior will continue until the political class is convinced that
the outrage of the American Voters over such scandals outweighs their desire
for their portion of the pork."
Vermonters in particular need
to take a good look at our Congressional delegation. In CAGW’s Pork Per
Capita by State calculations, it was discovered that Vermont‘s delegation
delivered $123.85 of pork per person in 2009 against a national average
of $29.60 Per Person. That put us in 8th place among all 50 states when
it comes to "bringing home the bacon". Although that is an improvement
over 2008’s 6th place, we still have a ways to go if we are to become a
leader in the effort for reform, rather than part of the problem. In addition
to our problem with pork, there is the matter of Vermont constantly receiving
more in federal government benefits than it pays in income taxes. Our dependency
on federal government handouts flies in the face of our image of independence.
If Vermonters are to live up to its image of independence and become a
leader in the effort for real reform, we need to change course and send
representatives to Washington D.C who are more interested in returning
political power back to the people than they are buying the people’s vote
with their own, or their neighbor’s, tax dollars.
Decentralizing political
power by returning it to the people is a necessary foundation of any effort
aimed at REAL government reform. There are other steps that should be made
in parallel such as eliminating many of the perks and privileges that set
the political class apart from the average citizen. Do we have candidates
who are willing to run a campaign ready to pursue a course of real government
reform if Vermont’s voters are ready to support such reform? Do we have
enough voters who are more interested in ethnical government than in making
sure that we get our share of the pork? Enquiring minds want to know.
Robert Maynard is the
Editor of the True North website
# # # # #
|
