We are in the midst of a national debate over the size and scope of government and I am hopeful. Conservative Republican Joe Miller’s remarkable victory in the Alaska Republican Senate Primary should have Americans feeling optimistic about the prospects of real change coming to Washington in 2011. Miller’s victory over incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski is just the latest jolt to an establishment that has paved the way for an unsustainable $13.3 trillion national debt and record budget deficits.
My PAC, Citizens United Political Victory Fund (www.cupvf.org) has a goal for the 2009-2010 election cycle to recapture the majorities in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives by helping to elect candidates who will fight for conservative principles and challenge the agenda of the Obama Administration. To date, CUPVF has made more than $300,000 in direct contributions to 53 federal candidates who are campaigning to put an end to this fiscal insanity.
If Miller is elected to the Senate in November, along with fellow fiscal conservatives Pat Toomey (PA), Marco Rubio (FL), Sharron Angle (NV), Ken Buck (CO), and Rand Paul (KY), business as usual in Washington will be over. And good riddance! After all, one U.S. Senator has the power to bring the legislative and appropriations process to a halt. Imagine what this group of potential newcomers, with a clear mandate to stop the spending, could do to get America’s fiscal house in order! Establishment incumbents from both parties should beware that the taxpayer funded party is about to end. Voters are giving the order: enough is enough.
Who would have believed 18 months ago that President Obama’s big government agenda and ultra-liberal ideology would actually be the catalyst for bringing real change to Washington? I think it’s fair to say that if Obama had governed moderately as promised, the level of fiscal change that is rapidly approaching would not have been possible. Obama and the liberals completely misread their mandate and this is the result. Americans voted for pragmatic governance in 2008 – not a continuation of the LBJ welfare state on steroids.
The task at hand is not going to be pretty. Nothing but the toughest of decisions will have to be made to pull us back from the cliff we will be falling off if we stay on our current path. The Federal budget has to be severely slashed. The same goes for state budgets, because the bailouts from the feds are going to come to a screeching halt. Meaningful entitlement reform and dramatic earmark reform are absolutely necessary. This is our generation’s real Apollo project. Do we have the mettle to do the tough things for the sake of our children and grandchildren, or will we just do the easy thing and vote to increase the debt ceiling on our way to bankruptcy?
I believe in American exceptionalism, and if we succeed in this daunting mission, the rest of the world will once again believe as well.