A Better Budget For A Safer America

Article by Dr. Ada Fisher
- North Carolina National Committee Woman

There are over 8,000 earmarks in the Obama Administration’s first proposed budget. If the Republicans are committed to less taxes, less government (which doesn’t do for people what they can do for themselves) and individual responsibility, we should be willing to unilaterally remove the 40% of those earmarks in the budget which we [Republicans] have placed there unless they have an impact on federal operations for all of the states.

Republicans need to be the first to get our house in order and throw down the gauntlet of “Country First” by showing, not just talking about, our lack of support for a budget laden with earmarks. If we act decisively with solutions which get this country moving forward without further burdening this and future generations with taxes we, as well as this nation, will have a leg up for 2010 and beyond.

The budget and stimulus package should have been dripping with projects which not only are shovel ready but also protect the safety of citizens on our aging transportation routes. For North Carolina to continue to not receive monies to repair the federal I-85 Yadkin River Bridge which is the main North to South connector through the state as well as East to West lifeline is criminal. This says we really aren’t interested in securing the safety of our people. Surely each state can come up with one or two large projects in priority order which will shore up our infrastructure as well as put folks to work using private contractors who also need work.

An economic crisis is a time to rebuild for a stronger nation. This is the time when we should look beneath the rocks, across the streams and over the hills ever forward to a promising future. Such cannot be had re-treading the same worn tires of increasing taxation with a loss of personal liberty. My father use to state in church that “Charity begins at home” and so should rebuilding this nation’s stability. We cannot rebuild other nations if we fail to be the beacon of light at home.

Wake up America! Let’s get our house in order and show our commitment to transparency with decreased wasteful government spending. Economic crisis demands austerity where we insure that we have provided the essential needs of citizens not the whimsical wants.

Keynesian spending does not work effectively unless it is spent specifically on infrastructure that makes a nation stronger and more competitive. Otherwise it is simply waste. The constant mantra of Democrats that they want to "invest" in something is nothing but code speak for waste and pork under the guise of improving our nation. When we already spend more money on education than it needs, claiming that we are going to "invest" in education is simply a scam to fatten the paychecks of education administrators who are already overpaid and who don't teach.

A perfect example of the waste in road building is the million dollars that was being spent to pave a one mile dead end road here in Bertie County that 40 years ago had a school bus stop on it. No one had lived on that road since a couple of years after it was added to the list of dirt roads with bus stops. The school bus no longer went down the road and had not for nearly 40 years. No one used the road except a local farmer who drove his tractor to his fields. Government bureaucrats of course did not care. It was on a list of roads to be paved that not been intelligently updated in 40 years. Bureaucrats did not care if it was needed or not. All over this state there are roads being paved where one family lives in poverty on the road and they each get millions of dollars in road paving for that single family's benefit. In many cases the parents don't work or pay taxes which is why they live in a small trailer on a dirt road. There are more rational ways to spend our tax money and care for those children than to pave that road in some mindless exercise.

Too many elected Republicans are not committed to our Republican principles of spending taxpayer money frugally and intelligently. If nothing else, the current political situation is bringing home the reality that if we are to be believed by the voters, we must stop tolerating corrupt politicians hiding under the Republican label.