Conservatives Must Take US Senate in 2012

Conservatives Must Take US Senate in 2012

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

 As the battle rages in the US Congress over raising the debt ceiling, cutting spending, and raising taxes, it is becoming increasingly clear that conservatives must take the Senate in November of 2012.

At this writing, all the news media is focused on the GOP plan working its way through the US House of Representatives.  The problem is, the GOP plan stands no chance, whatsoever, in the Senate.  At this writing, I have not seen the plan and, frankly, there is a very good chance that I won’t like it when I DO see it.

I draw that conclusion from the fact that many of the new conservatives sent to the House in the 2010 election don’t like the plan and reports of severe arm-twisting by the Speaker’s troops have been making their way into the news frequently.

Regardless of which “plan” actually gets to the President’s desk for his signature, there is a better than even chance, I, as a conservative, will not like it.

I, personally, want a plan with NO NEW TAXES or TAX INCREASES.  We take in enough money to pay our bills now without the added burden of new taxes further depressing the business community.

I want a plan with HUGE spending cuts – cuts that take effect immediately -- not way the heck down the road into the future. 

Look.  Projected spending cuts in the future have a way of simply disappearing between the time they are promised by our politicians and the time window for their implementation closes. We cannot count on future Congresspersons and Senators “remembering” to implement those spending cuts.  Believe me, they have proven to have extremely short memories when it comes to promises having to do with our money.

As far as raising the debt ceiling is concerned, I don’t want it increased at all.  In fact, I want it lowered.  In reality, though, the debt ceiling will have to be raised because our government, from the Oval Office to the Senate to the House of Representatives has borrowed so much money they have run that debt to an astronomical height.  Think about it.  As of today, the US OWES more money that any nation in the history of the world  -- and they still want to borrow more and more -- and simply blow most of it.

The bottom line is this:  There is no way to guarantee our federal government won’t spend us into bankruptcy – except through a “balanced budget amendment” to the constitution.  The only way such an amendment can be ratified by the people of the country is for it to pass both houses of the Congress and be sent to the states. Believe me when I tell you, there is no way the politicians are going to give up their checkbooks on the US treasury by passing a balanced budget amendment – because they know the people of the country would ratify it in a New York minute!   So don’t hold your breath waiting for it.

Oh, and while we are on the subject of raising the debt ceiling, allow me to point out that if President Obama is just dead set on being impeached -- then he should invoke the 14^th Amendment and go ahead and raise the debt ceiling “unilaterally.”  I can assure you that Articles of Impeachment would be drafted before the ink was dry on Obama’s executive order. 

Allow me one other thought on Mr. Obama raising the debt ceiling by invoking the 14^th Amendment.  Such an action by Obama has been likened to the Emancipation Proclamation.  It is good to note, I think, that the Emancipation Proclamation freed not a single slave. Raising the debt ceiling by executive order would, indeed, free Obama from his duties as President of the United States.   Of that you can be sure.

It is looking more and more as if the government is not able to come to an agreement and, most likely a short term “fix,” of some kind, will be implemented to insure the US does not default on its debt.  Seems to me that’s where we have been headed all along.

So. What do we do to insure that this does not happen again? 

We must have a conservative controlled federal government.  That means, at the very least, we must control both houses of Congress.  I hasten to add -- it must be a “veto-proof majority.”  Otherwise a president of the opposing party will simply whip out his “veto” stamp and veto everything reaching his desk, thereby bringing the legislative branch of the government to a screeching halt.  Conservatives will have gained nothing.

Things have changed in America.  People are tired, broke, worried, angry – and volatile.  It will take very little for that anger to break loose resulting in Americans surging into the streets bringing chaos and anarchy, especially to our great urban centers.

Limousine Liberals and Country Club Republicans are an endangered species these days. BOTH are so out of touch with the average American that they have no clue that their days in those cushy jobs in Washington are numbered.  

Conservatives continue to search for someone (a true conservative) to carry our banner into the White House in January of 2013.  It is an understatement to say we are “unhappy” with the candidates currently offering themselves for our perusal. 

Things have to change in America.  We must return to those virtues that made us the greatest nation on the planet.  There is simply no other viable choice for our national salvation.

It should be abundantly clear to all Americans that our flirtation with socialism, under the Obama Administration, has nearly destroyed our country. Another 4 years of that collectivist/communist ideology WILL most certainly end the grand experiment that is America.

Americans can return sanity to our government in 2O12 by purging our government of the fat-cat liberals and the weak-spined republicans, who just want to be liked, and replace them with men and women who will make the difficult choices that we all know MUST be made to save America for our children and our grand children. 

In the meantime, we can take comfort in a piece of scripture from the Bible, which seems as if was directed, not just to the people of the writer’s day, but directly to modern day Americans, as well.  It reads thusly:  “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

Does anyone dispute our land NEEDS healing … desperately?

J. D. Longstreet