Who would not vote for Reagan after this speech?

Reagan Is Still Relevant

The View from the Middle

As we launch into a new and hopefully prosperous year, I would like to take you back 35 years, almost to the day.  It was a relatively warm and pleasant day in Washington DC as the new President, Ronald Reagan, made his first inaugural address.  He was gracious to departing President Jimmy Carter.  He spoke of his faith in average Americans and he talked about the power of unity to make this country great.  He was unapologetically proud of The United States, despite its flaws, and painted a vision of an even better and brighter America.  We need this message even more today, and to help you all experience it, I’m providing a link to that address below.  Obviously, I encourage you to watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpPt7xGx4Xo

This brief walk down memory lane reminded me of the biggest difference between President Obama’s thinking and mine.  It seems that Mr. Obama’s solution to every problem we face involves a bigger and more intrusive government.  This is despite the fact that two thirds of Americans already think that the government is too big, and 75% believe that there is widespread corruption in Washington.  Back in 1981, President Reagan captured this sentiment with one, now famous, line in his inaugural speech.  He said that whatever the issue is, “Government is not the solution to the problem.  Government IS the problem.”

He recognized what Carly Fiorina has been trumpeting throughout her campaign.  She has continually said that “our government is too big, too powerful, too complicated, too costly, too corrupt, and too inefficient and it is crushing the rights of our citizens.”   Let me add that I believe our four trillion dollar a year bureaucracy is clumsy, insensitive and heavy-handed.

Just ask Aaron and Melissa Klein of Oregon who were fined over $150,000 for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple.  No matter how you feel about the LGBT community, you must understand this couple’s right to follow their religious beliefs.  But our government has no feelings. It just crushes anything that doesn’t line up with its impersonal, callous, collective regulations.  Even gay baker Jesse Bartholomew made a video in support of the Klein’s and expressed disgust with those brutalizing the Oregon bakers.

Even if you would like to deny the Klein’s their right to choose not to bake the cake, you must agree that the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.  Do you think it is proper to fine small business owners $150,000 and destroy their lives and their business for not baking a cake?  But that is how our inept, heartless, oppressive government acts.  And that’s when it isn’t abusing its power, which we all know it can.

Remember the Director of the EPA who was teaching his people how they needed to “crucify” a few businesses in order to get them in line, just like the Romans did back at the time of Christ.  And do you remember Lois Lerner and the IRS Exempt Organizations Unit.  Recall the nightmarish stories of bureaucratic red tape and government intimidation that these groups experienced at the hands of our government?  Whether you believe it was intentional or not, just imagine the frustration you would experience dealing with our bungling, cold-blooded, complicated, brutal government.

Who wants more of anything that is already huge, incomprehensible, overly expensive, corrupt and inept?  And that is what the vast majority of Americans think of government, and for good reason!!  So, when you hear politicians propose free college, free (government run) healthcare, free family care, expanded Social Security, remember two things.  First, the government has NO money.  Whatever they are proposing, these politicians will not be writing personal checks to cover it.  They will be spending YOUR money.  And why would you want to give more of your money to any entity that is recognized to be clumsy, heartless, incompetent and corrupt?  You wouldn’t.

Finally, beware of any politician who isn’t proposing a smaller government.  No matter what party they represent, if they aren’t striving to minimize government, then they are proposing to expand it, because government will naturally grow larger if it is not intentionally constrained.  If you don’t want to live a real-life “Hunger Games”, vote for smaller government at every opportunity.