California Conservative

In 2006, conservatives across the nation stayed home to “teach the GOP a lesson.” That definitely happened here in Minnesota. We’re paying the price for that lesson in the forms of an irresponsible DFL-dominated legislature that is tax-happy but isn’t reform-minded or accountable to anyone but their special interest friends.

The cost of that lesson is now manifesting itself in the form of higher taxes and increased spending here in Minnesota. It’s manifesting itself in Washington where Pelosi’s Democrats are so beholden to the lawyers’ lobby that they won’t pass a FISA reform bill that would give us greater surveillance abilities against the jihadists.

Is party purity worth all the bad policy that’s getting considered right now? I’d suggest it isn’t. I’d suggest that it’s set the conservative movement back at least a decade. That’s hardly worth it. It’ll set us back further if Hillary or Obama get in & replace Ruth Bader-Ginsburg & John Paul Stevens with 50-something year old ACLU-approved replacements.

Let me be blunt about this: These lesson-teaching purists must now decide whether it’s more important to teach us another lesson or if it’s more important to elect Republicans and recapture the House of Representatives this time to thwart the irresponsible budget management that this group of Democrats have demonstrated.

I’d vehemently argue that it’s infinitely more important that we outwork the DFL, that we elect enough principled Republicans so that we control the House. That way, we don’t have to worry about Gov. Pawlenty’s veto getting overridden. That way our bills & amendments are the ones that the DFL has to defeat.

When the dust settled after the 2006 election, Minnesota Republicans dodged a bullet because Tim Pawlenty defeated Mike Hatch. Nonetheless, we realized that there were other bullets that we’d still have to avoid. After all, the DFL controlled 85 seats in the House, meaning that they didn’t just control the agenda; they dominated the agenda.

They were so arrogant that Cy Thao made this statement:

“When you guys win, you get to keep your money. When we win, we take your money.”

The Senate was even worse, with the DFL controlling 44 of the 67 seats, meaning that they were a single vote shy of a veto-proof majority. Since then, they gained another seat in a special election, which gives them a veto-proof majority.

The DFL campaigned on not raising taxes. They quickly trashed that pledge when their special interest allies started whining that they weren’t getting paid off. (That isn’t how it was worded publicly but that’s what happened.) Let’s put that into the proper context, too, because it’s quite noteworthy.

The House DFL didn’t propose any tax increases until after the budget forecast came in. The November forecast predicted a $2.2 billion surplus. February’s report showed that the state budget had a $2.163 billion surplus. The DFL tried arguing that there really wasn’t a surplus because they didn’t factor inflation into the equation. As King argued here, inflation shouldn’t be factored in.

Undaunted, the DFL still went on a tax increasing spree, which was stopped thanks to our goalie and the unity of the House GOP Caucus. Had the projection been off by a significant amount, I might’ve understood their tax increases. The projection was off by $37 million dollars. I’ll bet that King would say that that’s a statistically insignificant figure.

The point in all this is to remind those that taught us a lesson that their lesson caused alot of needless suffering and irresponsible financial mismanagement. On a national level, it meant that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid caved into the trial attorneys when they let the FISA reforms lapse, thereby wreaking havoc on our intelligence-gathering operations.

Two years later, it’s obvious that few lessons were taught. It’s more obvious that many Minnesotans are worse off because of the DFL’s financial mismanagement.

The real lesson to be learned is that we need everyone getting involved. It’s imperative that we outwork the DFL so that we can recapture the majority in the House. Only after that can we restore fiscal sanity to Minnesota.

On a national scale, the implications are larger. If those that stayed hom in 2006 return with a fire in their belly, we can recapture the House and put John McCain in the White House.

We owe that much to each other and to our country. It’s time to outwork our opponents. It’s time that we explained why our way is the superior way, that fiscal conservatism leads to greater individual liberty and increased prosperity. After all, you can’t government yourself to prosperity. Government can’t even do many good things.

Technorati Tags: Election 2006, Tax Increases, Fiscal Insanity, Tarryl Clark, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, FISA Reform, National Security, Intelligence, Hillary, Obama, Tim Pawlenty, John McCain, Terrorism, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 12:50 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Election 2008, Hillary, Homeland Security, Intel, Taxes, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.