By Hayes Gahagan
Your vote counts – in the general and in the primary election! It’s time for you to get involved in politics. Your economic life could depend on it. Here’s why:
Change in the wrong direction: Partisan politics aside, the year 2012 will be a critical year for our economy and for our individual freedom. As traditional Republican, Democrat and independent conservatives predicted, the “change” in 2008 ushered in more government, more regulations, more spending, more taxes, higher prices, and less individual freedom.
Too much government is the problem: Bipartisan traditional conservatives believe too much government is the problem; it is not the solution. According to the Bureau of labor Statistics/Department of Energy, unemployment has climbed 25 percent, debt has grown 35 percent and the price of a gallon of gas has jumped from $1.83 to $3.74 per gallon since Inauguration Day.
To bring this even closer to home, the President ordered his Cabinet to cut $100 million from the $3.5 trillion federal budget. Here’s what this looks like from a kitchen-table perspective: Let’s say you spend $2,000 month on groceries, household expenses, medicine, utilities, etc., but it’s time to follow the President’s example and get out your budget-cutting axe, go through your expenses, and cut back. If you cut your spending at exactly the same ratio as the President has requested of his Cabinet, that will be 1/35,000 of your total budget. After doing the math, it looks like instead of spending $2,000 a month, you’ll need to cut that number back by six cents! In my book, that’s not a cut or even a light shave.
The solution is less government: Bipartisal traditional conservatives believe the solution to our economic problems is limited government, less spending, less taxation, less regulation and more individual choice in a free market that can deliver more private sector jobs and lower prices.
For too long, traditional conservatives have had their potent political power divided by enrolling in either of the two major parties or by not enrolling at all, as if being a so-called Independent is anything other than a dilution of individual political power where the net effect is to limit choice to either one of the two major Party Primary winners, effectively throwing their vote away to some politically net impotent fractionated Third Party.
The hidden majority: Traditional conservatives will continue to be the hidden majority unless and until we consolidate our potential political power into one of the two major parties, specifically in the Primary process. Practically speaking, there are likely to be more traditional conservatives enrolled in the Republican Party, at least in Aroostook County, than there are enrolled in the Democratic Party.
Action item for all conservatives: If you agree, it’s time to consider directing your individual conservative political power to join other like-minded conservatives to nominate one of the conservatives seeking the Republican nomination for President. There is no conservative voice represented in the Democratic Party. Unenrolled “Independents” are not even represented in the Primary process.
Date, time and place: All politics is local. And there are local conservatives who have formed a conservative coalition in the Aroostook County Republican Party. Regardless of your current political affiliation or non-affiliation, if you’re an American citizen able and willing to dedicate some personal time and resources to elect economic conservatives to public office and help to preserve and protect our individual freedom, please join us this Saturday, Oct. 15 at 9 a.m. at the Caribou Inn and Convention Center — for our Republic!
Hayes Gahagan of Presque Isle is a former state senator from Aroostook and serves as chairman of the Aroostook County Republican Committee.
