I DVR’d WMUR’s "Closeup" program yesterday and am just watching it now.
Before his head hit the pillow on Night One, he should have understood, there’s a 100,000 gallons an hour gushing out of the Gulf floor, and this is my New Number One Priority"
– Jim Bender, candidate for US Senator
Priorities – we hear that a lot from politicians and talking heads. Jim is right – Obama said it was a crisis but did not act as if it was actually a crisis (e.g., hat, no cattle) – there was no Federal "All hands on deck" until the political effluent hit the vertical circulating device.
The sad fact is, few are willing to put substance to those words. I’ve gone on record, as an elected local official in my hamlet, as to what I believe should be a town’s priorities: DPW (we all use roads all the time), public safety (e.g., Police, Fire; when help is required, it has to be there NOW even if used infrequently), tax collector (can’t run the first three w/out this one), education, and then downward from there. PRIORITIES are important, otherwise you end up with what the son in the animated movie "The Incredibles" stated: "If everyone’s special, then nobody’s special." If what Government cannot figure out what is special, all you get is spending on everything.
Gee, that’s what’s happening now, isn’t it?
Tim Pawlenty has been coming to this First in the Nation Primary State a few times already –
I bookmarked this op-ed in Politico by him for when the "video crazy time" passed to bring up:
1. Set clear priorities but cut almost everything else. Not everything government does is equally important. When faced with a budget shortfall in Minnesota, we considered the importance of programs. We decided to protect funding for the most important ones: the National Guard, veterans’ support programs, public safety and K-12 schools…
…Nearly everything else has been cut. Last year, we cut overall spending in real terms for the first time in the state’s 150-year history.
Here in NH, all I’ve heard is "we have to protect the needy amongst us" as if Government was nothing but an involuntary charity (er, wait – that IS the message of Progressivism – YOU can’t be trusted and are incapable of assisting your neighbors – only elites in Government can). Trying to nail down priorities is the typical "nail the Slime to the wall" exercise – it just drips, drips, drips until the puddle fills the floor.
We have to elect people who are willing to stay true to Conservative issues, as I said here. We also have to elect people that are willing to state what their priorities are and are willing to be held to them.
Then, WE – not those we elect – WE have to be willing to continuously vigilant in holding them accountable. OUR Priority has to be, going forward, to never allowing Government and those that drive it via our votes, to go forward on auto-pilot ever again.
Oh yeah, this was nice too:
3. Sacrifice. Americans have sacrificed enough; it’s time for government to sacrifice for a change…
…Before we ask taxpayers to make “painful choices,” we need to ask the politicians and bureaucrats to make a few first.
Indeed. Government, under Democrat / Socialist President Obama’s leadership in DC and Democrat Governor John "Do Nuttin’" Lynch have been essentially recession proof – budgets have soared, and so have the deficits.
When will we demand that the priority is not Government, but people. It seems that Government is running the show – the Founders NEVER desired that to have been their sacrifice and the millions that have made the ultimate sacrifice for their ideal.
