Ravenel: major parties failing citizens, taxpayers - fitsnews

In March of 2006 then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama offered an impassioned rebuke of runaway GOP deficit spending during a debate over the nation’s debt ceiling. “The fact we are here today to

debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure,” Obama said at the time. “It is a sign that the U.S. government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend

on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our government’s reckless fiscal policies.” “Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally,” Obama

continued. “Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren.” Spoken like a true

Tea Partier, right? Of course Obama changed his tune upon being elected – dramatically accelerating the very fiscal policies he previously chastised as “reckless.” Now the “reckless” ones –

according to both Obama and GOP strategist Karl Rove – are the pro-free market, pro-liberty fiscal conservatives advocating the spending restraint Obama once claimed to stand for (and which

the Republican party still claims to stand for). Yet ask Obama and he’ll tell you that these socially libertarian, common sense fiscal conservatives are destroying the country. And if you

ask Rove he’ll tell you they are destroying the Republican Party. In both cases nothing could be further from the truth – and I’ve got the numbers to prove it. Prior to the most recent

stopgap debt deal, Democrats and Republicans in Washington had approved $11.2 trillion in new deficit spending dating back to 2002. Breaking down this total, $3.4 trillion was approved by

George W. Bush and “Republican” Congresses, $2.4 trillion was approved by Bush and Democratic Congresses, $3 trillion was approved by Obama and Democratic Congresses and $2.4 trillion was

approved by Obama and a divided Congress. In other words neither party has protected America’s current and future generations of taxpayers – choosing instead to support Washington D.C.’s

special interest-fed spending orgy (which subsidizes an aggressive centralized bureaucracy that routinely suppresses liberty and prosperity). Spending is only part of the problem, too. Both

Bush and Obama have embraced the failed command economic interventionism of Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve – which continues to print up to $85 billion a month in fiat money, cash that

invariably winds up lining the pockets of Wall Street fat cats. Was this what Obama – a self-proclaimed champion of the middle class – had in mind in 2008 when he told Joe the Plumber he

wanted to “spread the wealth around?” Because according to former Fed official Andrew Huszar this $3.2 trillion (and counting) scheme represents “the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of

all time.” Here’s the thing: Wealth _should_ be spread around – but only according to the laws of supply and demand and the innovative capacity of individuals operating within the free

market. Prosperity is expanded for all people when taxes are low and government is small – and suppressed when taxes are high and government is too big. Yet where is the political party

advancing this simple, undefiled truth? Sadly the answer is “nowhere to be found.” At the federal, state and local level GOP and the Democratic politicians love to throw rhetorical bombs at

one other – vague, clichéd barbs sensationalized by the mainstream media (which thrives on meaningless conflict as a means of perpetuating its false narrative). But the unavoidable truth is

that both major political parties are slaves to the same system. Look no further than their shared refusal to make meaningful spending cuts – or their shared assault on the handful of

elected officials who _do_ propose specific spending reductions. America is on an unsustainable fiscal course – and will remain locked on that course until a party emerges that is willing to

faithfully and aggressively advance free market alternatives. _THOMAS RAVENEL is a former Republican elected official who resides in Charleston, S.C.  This column – reprinted with

permission – originally appeared in The Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier._