Vote In Lockstep – Or Else Get Removed

We are all familiar with the “Don’t waste your vote on a third party. It only helps elect the candidate you don’t want.” mantra. That sentiment comes from the leadership of the two major political parties. While the sentiment may be true (witness the 1992 presidential election), what is a person to do when a major party turns its back on you?

Permit me to be specific. Two recent actions by Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) started this row.

Yesterday, December 4, 2012, Boehner (and others in the Republican “leadership”) actually proposed to President Obama and Democrats a tax increase of some $800 billion, a cut of spending by $1.4 trillion, but NO substantive reforms to the entitlement programs. In a letter to Obama, Boehner said, “… we [Republican leadership] recognize it would be counterproductive to publicly or privately propose entitlement reforms that you and the leaders of your party appear unwilling to support in the near-term.”

Personal observation: I guess that means that we conservatives will continue to pay for ever-increasing entitlements that cause ever-increasing government dependence.

• In a bold (for him) move, weak leader Boehner removed three members of the “Tea Party” class of 2010: Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ), Justin Amash (R-MI), and Tim Huelskamp (R-KS). Schweikert was told that his removalwas because his “votes were not in lockstep with leadership.”It’s interesting to note what Tad DeHaven, of the Cato Institute, said:   (DeHaven’s article is also a very good read)
  

  “On seven particularly telling votes, Schweikert and Amash voted in favor of limited government every time. Out of 87 freshmen, only Schweikert, Amash, and five others had a perfect record. Huelskamp was six for seven. He also was one of only four Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee to vote against the bloated farm bill that passed out of the committee in July.”

The “problem,” of course, is that if we conservatives form a third party (or wholeheartedly support the Tea Party), thus ending support (with money and vote) for the Republicans (the more conservative of the two major parties), then we make the situation more favorable for the Democrats. We conservatives are in a “Catch 22” situation, one that begs for someone like CDN’s Rich Mitchell to address.

But that’s just my opinion.

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