As I embarked on writing an article about my opposition to the idea that newly elected conservative legislators should budge on issues like spending, debt, or health care, I began searching the Internet to see what others had to say. Almost immediately I came across an article — see below — which reflects my perspective.
Election’s Message Was ‘No Compromise’
by Jerry Haas
Athens Banner-Herald (GA) • November 7, 2010
In 1963, California surf rock band The Surfaris released a song that begins with a roll of laughter, followed by the words “wipe out.” That lyric is a fitting description of the Nov. 2 election results, in which Republicans thoroughly drubbed Democrats to take an overwhelming majority in the U.S. House and make significant gains in the U.S. Senate, as well as in numerous other state and local political races.
Some may say Republicans were the big winners Tuesday.
It might also be said the big winners are Americans who believe the socialistic programs initiated and enacted during the past 20 months of President Barack Obama’s administration need to be stopped and eliminated.
And, it might be said that the big winners are the more than 10 percent of our population who are unemployed, or have given up searching for a job, and as a result of Tuesday balloting, now believe that economic growth to create private sector jobs is just around the corner.
Finally, some may say the big winners are those small business owners and entrepreneurs who need to fuel our economic recovery but who have been paralyzed by the Obama administration’s failure to extend the expiring Bush tax cuts that will trigger the largest single tax increase in the history of our country.
Actually, there are no big winners coming out of Tuesday’s elections.
What happened on Nov. 2 didn’t create winners. What it did create was opportunities.
There’s an opportunity to stop the largest tax increase in American history. There’s an opportunity to shrink the federal government, balance the budget and begin reducing the national debt. There’s an opportunity to free up the private sector to create jobs. There’s an opportunity to repeal the governmental takeover of America’s health care system.
There’s an opportunity to once again have a government that is truly of the people, by the people and for the people.
However, these opportunities may not be realized if the Obama administration and Senate liberals don’t understand that the giant iceberg of conservatism now sits in the path of the Titanic-sized push to grow the federal government. Even in the face of the political “shellacking” – the president’s term – administered Tuesday, Democratic leaders still expressed pride in what had been done legislatively in the past 20 months. This doesn’t bode well for any substantive conservative changes in the 112th Congress.
But make no mistake: Republicanism didn’t produce the largest swing in House seats in 70 years; it was conservatism. So, it’s tragic that Senate leaders are sending the message that Senate Republicans must cease saying “no” to the Obama administration initiatives Americans loudly proclaimed Tuesday they did not want.
The newly elected conservative members of the House and Senate aren’t being sent to Washington to compromise. Tuesday’s message was loud and clear: Shrink government and create an environment that enables the private sector to once again become the greatest economic engine in the world, and while you’re at it, repeal the health care overhaul. With Obama still president and the Senate lacking a conservative caucus of at least 60 members, the probability of significant strides toward accomplishing any of these is doubtful.
Regardless of that dismal outlook, conservatives must bring these issues to the floor continuously for a full vote. If measures passed in the House are held up or not passed in the Senate, or after being passed by Congress are vetoed by the president, it will set the stage for those who did not get the message from the collapse of liberalism on Nov. 2 to once again try and defend their record during the 2012 election cycle.
The people have spoken. The mandate is clear. The opportunity to begin moving a conservative agenda forward has been generated. It is up to those who now represent us to do what we want them to do – without compromise.
Jerry Haas, a local Banner-Herald columnist, is involved in Christian ministry. Send him email here.
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