Posted on 03/23/2004 4:52:19 AM PST by MikeJ75
MIAMI -- Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate have helped run up a record federal deficit, haven't made tough budget cuts, and failed President Bush. Larry Klayman says he's someone who would be a "true" Republican in Washington who wouldn't go along simply because he was in the majority party.
"I support the president, but I think he's gotten bad advice and he's going along with the Senate leadership who wanted to hand out all these goodies," said Klayman, who's running for the GOP Senate nomination.
Klayman, 52, said he can help the president by coming to the Senate as an outsider and taking the heat for a tough stand on the budget. He called the current Senate leadership "gutless."
"I'm not going up to Washington to go along and get along. I'm going to be very respectful, but I'm going to be a true Republican," he said. "The Senate Republican leadership has failed the president and failed the country with a budget deficit of $5.75 trillion over the next 10 years. We have to balance that budget."
Klayman spoke during a wideranging interview with reporters and an editor of The Associated Press. Klayman is the founder of Judicial Watch, the conservative, Washington-based watchdog group that he left to run for Senate. He has also worked as a Justice Department lawyer and international trade attorney.
Klayman said he would have voted against the Medicare prescription drug bill Bush signed in December. Democrats have attacked the administration after it acknowledged the law will cost $534 billion over 10 years, compared to the $395 billion estimated by congressional budget analysts. Klayman said it was too expensive even before the cost estimate ballooned.
"We have a busted budget by $534 billion and that's a lot of money which we don't have," he said. "If you're a true Republican and a true conservative, like I like to think I am, that's a cause of great concern to you because our kids and grandkids are going to be bankrupt."
He also plans to investigate the Food and Drug Administration because efforts to lower prescription drug prices appear to have been blocked by special interests. He cited governments' inability to negotiate bulk rates from drug manufacturers and the agency's refusal to allow American madedrugs to be reimported from countries like Canada, where they sell for far less.
"I'm very concerned that the special interests in Washington are the ones who have lobbied so hard to put up this resistance where in fact, logically there should be no resistance," he said.
President Bush also received bad advice on going to war with Iraq, Klayman said, adding he should have acted to remove Saddam Hussein sooner.
"It's logical that we couldn't find weapons of mass destruction because he had a year to give them away. Clearly he had biological and chemical weapons and they're probably in the hands of other terrorists right now," Klayman said.
True.
I think we may have to remind them just who is the boss!
They are painfully aware of that.
WE ARE!!
Who's "we?"
If you mean conservatives, you're wrong; we're still a minority.
If you mean the voting public, you're absolutely right--but the voting public, at large disagrees with some elements of conservative thought (such as reducing government spending).
Like him or not, this time he's got a valid point.
So your criticism of this article is simply an ad hominum (against Klayman) and not based on anything said in the article? An interesting twist on "if you don't like the message shoot the messenger": If you don't like the messenger, ignore the message?
I admitted that in a previous post.
I'm not shooting any messenger. I'm trying my best to piss in Klayman's corn flakes. Many people may not remember him in his prime and I think that message needs to be delivered.
If we discovered iron-clad proof that Larry Klayman masterminded the 9-11 Massacre, sold the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviets, destroyed the Lost Colony of Roanoake, instigated the Children's Crusade, and arranged the Crucifixion, none of that would change the fact that the Republican Senate "leadership" is, indeed, gutless.
I, for one, didn't need Klayman to point that out. It doesn't make him a sage worthy of a seat in the game.
Hmmmmm. JW has gone from "conservative" to "non-partisan" back to "conservative" I see.
Was Klayman also being a "true Republican" when he and the Sierra Club sued Vice-President Cheney?
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