Ron Paul’s Pledge to America
by Jack Hunter
The Republican Party has a history of using desperate times to call for drastic measures and when bailing out AIG, bolstering Medicare or bombing Iraq, that party has always been willing to go big and bold on some of the largest government expansions in this nation’s history. But what about cutting government? You know, that stuff GOP politicians always talk about during election time? One might think that in a political environment in which so many are desperate to reverse what they see as unsustainable government growth, Republican rhetoric might at least attempt to reflect that desperation. But when GOP leaders unveiled their “Pledge to America” last week, the only thing revealed is that these Republicans remain what they have always been – pansies. In a nutshell, the old Republican guard now pledges to save America from the excesses of Obama by basically returning to the level of government we experienced under Bush – when these exact same Republicans were doubling the size of government. The pledge reflects little substance, there’s not even anything about a balanced budget amendment or earmarks – two longstanding but fairly tame Republican gripes – and some of it even promotes GOP statism, with promises to repeal and “replace” national healthcare, and of course, to spend even more money on a “defense” budget that already accounts for half the earth’s military spending. From the Contract with America in 1994 to the Pledge to America last week, the GOP has broken every contract or pledge it has ever made with conservatives. Now these same Republicans have made another empty promise, similar but even less appealing than the lies they’ve told in the past. This “pledge” is a joke.
When asked to give his take on the Pledge to America, Congressman Ron Paul stated the obvious on FOX Business, “I don’t hear enough precise things we would cut. I never hear that the military-industrial-complex should be addressed. I don’t ever hear that the discretionary and non-discretionary funding is all the same. I never hear which departments they really want to get rid of, so, it goes on and on and you just can’t have a little tinkering on the edges… as long as we want big government you can’t tinker with the edges.” Tinkering indeed. In a Tea Party environment in which so many are tired of conventional GOP politicians screwing around with the peripheral and irrelevant, why shouldn’t conservatives look to the one Republican who has never screwed around? Instead of wondering if John Boehner is now serious, trying to figure out what Sarah Palin is saying, hoping that Scott Brown turns out to be something special, looking for something worthwhile about Newt Gingrich or wondering which version of Mitt Romney might run for president, why shouldn’t those serious about limiting government get fully behind the one conservative leader who has always been dead serious? September 30, 2010 The "Southern Avenger" Jack Hunter is a conservative commentator (WTMA 1250 AM talk radio) and columnist (Charleston City Paper) living in Charleston, South Carolina. He blogs for The American Conservative. Copyright © 2010 The American Conservative
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