A. Barton Hinkle, a columnist at the Richmond Times Dispatch, has recently written an insightful article highlighting the slippery slope Republicans find themselves on as they continue to be the party of political hypocrisy. This is a much needed discussion and one of the key reasons, I do not support Republicans per say, but rather support Conservatives regardless of which side they are on the political aisle.
Hinkle writes:
Republicans are hypocrites about sex, it is sometimes said, and Democrats are hypocrites about money. It is true that GOP politicians keep getting caught with their pants down, while limousine liberals are free with other people’s money and misers with their own. But this is not the whole story. Republicans are hypocrites about both sex and money.
Take the recent Newsweek story on “The Tea Party Pork Binge.” The only time GOP politicians stop criticizing government handouts, it seems, is to ask for them. Which happens a lot.
The story leads off with Virginia’s own Eric Cantor, who sought billions for high-speed rail in the Old Dominion while he was blasting a similar project in Nevada. (Cantor’s office told the mag the House majority leader has since changed his mind.) It’s the same with Fred Upton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. He’s currently investigating the Energy Department’s sweetheart loan guarantees to Solyndra. Two years ago, though, he was seeking millions from the department for projects in his home state of Michigan.
Newsweek isn’t the first to plow this ground. The watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste has detailed the more than $1 billion in earmarks sought by members of the so-called Tea Party caucus. South Carolina’s Tim Scott sought $300 million for harbor dredging. Jon Runyan of New Jersey fought for federal beach-replenishment funds. The examples pile up to heights of ridiculous redundancy.
The Tea Party’s proletariat is not pleased. “It’s pretty disturbing,” Judson Phillips, co-founder of Tea Party Nation, tells Newsweek.
But grounds for disillusionment don’t end there. Republicans routinely utter shibboleths about the free market. Yet in practice they often substitute government’s hand for the invisible one.
In my humble but accurate opinion…
Hinkle continues to highlight Rick Perry’s, Bob McConnell’s and other Republicans hypocrisy. And, his list could be expanded for many, many pages. This is the problem with politicians who are no longer serving the people, by the will of the people–rather, they make decisions by election cycle and the type of PR they can generate.
Read Hinkle’s full article.
