Free Republic

What if there was a "just say no" movement on the part of conservative communities to REFUSE federal handouts? What if we just went back to the way it was before? What if we just say thanks but no thanks. Time was all towns lived within their means and just spent what they could afford. Why don't we go back to that?

Today, Oct. 22, marks the 273rd anniversary of the birth of an American icon: Daniel Boone. This death-defying adventurer axed his way through the Appalachian Mountains to settle Kentucky and open the Western frontier. Stamped across his rock-hard life is the trademark of America: the pioneer spirit to cross new frontiers and control one's destiny. Back then, people ran their own lives. Today, our vastly expanded Nanny State looks after us. Is this a good thing? Imagine you're a pioneer of yesteryear. How would you fare with today's nanny on your back? As you prepare your covered wagon for journeying...

Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul said today that he could see no possible reason to ever launch military action or initiate a war, vowing instead to battle efforts he said are undermining the individual liberties of people in America. In an interview with Washingtonpost.com's PostTalk program, the Texas congressman said he could see "no reason" to justify military action if he were elected president. He compared the United States to a schoolyard bully and said the country has no reason to flex its muscles overseas. "There's nobody in this world that could possibly attack us today," he said in the...

For the first time in over 30 years I am considering supporting a Republican for president of the United States. This may seem a little out of character for me, but I offer the following reasons that led me to make this decision. First, but not least, is the fact I have always been opposed to one party controlling the Senate, the House of Representatives and the White House at the same time, even if it is my own party. Division of powers allows for more checks and balances. Recent actions seem to validate this concern. The second reason is...

When Eastern Europe broke free in 1989, we all realized just how little thought had been given to the transition from socialism to capitalism. Mises had told us the collapse was coming, and we should have been prepared. As America comes to resemble a command economy, we need a transition plan here too. Yuri Maltsev proposed a "One-Year Plan" for the U.S.S.R. We're not in that bad a shape (yet), so we could do it in 30 days. DAY ONE: The federal income tax is abolished and April 15th is declared a national holiday. The 40% reduction in federal revenues...

As we all look forward to more sputtering news conference antics from Sen. Larry Craig, here's hoping that the Idaho politician will eventually draw on traditional Republican principles and stand up for his right to engage in consensual sex in toilet stalls with men. Craig, a critic of the Patriot Act who weakened some of its worst provisions during last year's renewal vote, clearly understands the need to keep the government from snooping willy-nilly on its citizens. At first flush, the news that the 62-year-old senior senator from the Gem State pleaded guilty Aug. 8 to misdemeanor charges of disorderly...

Former Senator from Tennessee Fred Thompson announced this week that he may dive into the bloody presidential election waters head first, perhaps as early as July 5th. Who is Fred Thompson, and is he a candidate that true small government believers can support? Before quitting this week to pursue his political aspirations, Thompson, 65, played a District Attorney on NBC's “Law & Order” television program. He lives in Northern Virginia and enjoys a membership within the Council on Foreign Relations and is a Visiting Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute. “After two years in Washington, I often long for the...

'Free to lose' isn't good philosophy for the right wing November 19, 2006 BY MARK STEYN Sun-Times Columnist If Milton Friedman had to die, then a week after the defeat of a Republican Congress that had apparently forgotten every lesson Friedman taught in Free To Choose is eerily apt timing. As it happens, had ill health not intervened, Professor Friedman would have been disembarking round about now from a National Review post-election cruise with yours truly and various other pundits and commentators. Instead, we were obliged to sail without him, and in the days that followed I found myself wondering...

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Lawrence W. Reed is one of those people with so much passion for an unusual line of work that he invented a new occupation, and it has helped shape the conservative movement from here to the Himalayas. Mr. Reed runs a conservative think tank school. Twice a year, ideological allies from across the globe travel to his program at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Mich., to study the tricks of the idea-peddling trade. Policy institutes have been central to a national organizing strategy that has long won the right a reputation for savvy,...

Proud to be a Texan Republican In an time where federal Republicans don't seem to remember the party's values, it makes me proud to know that Rick Perry and the Texas GOP stand loyal to them. Texas Republicans still believe that wasteful and excessive spending should be dramatically cut down. Texas Republicans still stand tough against illegal immigration and understand the need to preserve the American way of life. Texas Republicans still hold conservative values dear, yet they oppose excessive government encroachment in folks' private lifes. And, above all, Texas Republicans still believe in the power of the individual,...

GOP needs tough love, not abandonment -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Star Parker, World Net Daily, October 14, 2006 A survey just released by the Pew Center shows that 51 percent of Democrats are enthusiastic about voting in 2006 as opposed to 33 percent of Republicans. This is almost a mirror image of what the picture looked like in 1994. A Pew Center poll also shows a precipitous drop in support for Republicans and the Bush administration among white evangelicals. It's now a little over 50 percent, whereas in 2004 it was closer to 75 percent. Given the realities staring us in the...

I would be willing to bet that if I went onto the street and asked ten random people what the 10th Amendment to the Constitution said, that none of them would know it. Yet, in truth, the 10th Amendment represents one of the most important defining aspects of our government. Unfortunately, it is also the Amendment that our government most frequently ignores. -snip-

I joined the Republican Party a little bit later than most, as a direct result of the messages I heard from Ronald Reagan. When I began my own business, I discovered that most of the things I had been taught in college about government were wrong. As Ronald Reagan said and I quickly learned, government was a lot like a baby; a large appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. I could find precious few government agencies that accomplished their actual mission, and none that did so efficiently. I came to the conclusion that the...

Ray Haynes represents the 66th Assembly District, including portions of Western Riverside County and Northern San Diego County. I joined the Republican Party a little bit later than most, as a direct result of the messages I heard from Ronald Reagan. When I began my own business, I discovered that most of the things I had been taught in college about government were wrong. As Ronald Reagan said and I quickly learned, government was a lot like a baby: a large appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. I could find precious few government agencies...

As 2005 closes, and the next year’s federal budget season opens, fiscal conservatives are up in arms. Though he talks a good line about battling government bloat, our current President has shown an eerie lackawanna when it comes to actually keeping a lid on the federal Pandora’s box. Quite apart from Katrina or the war on terror, there has been a pattern of troublesome spending spikes right from the beginning of the Bush Administration: Dubya’s 2001 education bill (“No Child Left Behind”) was the most expensive in history. His 2002 farm bill was the highest priced ever. His 2003 Medicare...

During his long career in politics, Richard Nixon said many things that were not strictly true. But the biggest misstatement of all may have come in 1958, when he went to Wisconsin to campaign against Democratic Sen. William Proxmire. If Proxmire were re-elected, Nixon told voters, "you will be in for a wild spending binge by radical Democrats drunk with visions of votes." There are worse things than that -- Proxmire, after all, had won the seat after the death of red-baiter Joseph McCarthy, whose reckless smears got him censured by the Senate. But as it turned out, Proxmire was...

It's only taken a decade or so, but suddenly there's momentum in Congress for spending restraint. We'll be watching the fine print, but you can tell Republicans are worried about complaints from conservative voters because for a change they're trying to act, well, like Republicans. In a first good sign, House leaders are rewriting their Fiscal 2006 budget resolution to increase the amount of "savings" to as much as $50 billion over five years. This is far from onerous, but it is better than the $35 billion Congress passed the first time around. In another miracle, they are also moving...

SMALL GOVERNMENT CONSERVATIVES HAVE REVOLTED against President Bush and the Republican leadership of the Senate and the House. Their goal, with hurricane recovery costs soaring, is what it's always been: to hold down spending and restrain the growth of government. It is an impossible dream or close to impossible. The small government brigade is a distinct minority in Congress. Their strength is outside Congress. They reflect the anxiety of the Republican party's base, conservatives and moderates both, over the uncontrolled spending and massive expansion of government following hurricane Katrina. "The base is killing us," a Republican senator says.There's another source...

On September 8, 2005, Wall Street Journal columnist David Wessel announced that "the era of small government is over. Sept. 11 challenged it. Katrina killed it." Wessel's declaration comes nearly a decade after President Clinton declared that "the era of big government is over." But Clinton and Wessel are both wrong, for different reasons. The relative size of the federal government has been remarkably stable for over 50 years. In 1952, the third year of the Korean War, federal spending was 20.3 percent of GDP; in 2005 to date, the third year of the Iraq War, federal spending is 20.4...

Columbia, South CarolinaPERHAPS the most overused political tag these days is "budget hawk." It's embraced by Democrats who want to balance bloated budgets by raising taxes and by Republicans who want to cut taxes but have little appetite for spending cuts. Then there is a budget hawk like Mark Sanford, South Carolina's GOP governor, whose thrifty ways infect his politics as much as they do his personal life. "The governor is as cheap as everyone says he is," says his former press secretary. "It's not part of his image."The aide describes a recent staff retreat at Sanford's 3,000-acre farm near...