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Sunday, August 20, 2006
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John Aloysius Farrell (via the Denver Post): "It has taken libertarians some time to figure it out. For years they've been having their pockets picked by honey-voiced Republicans vowing to end Big Government. Like their odd bedfellows in the Republican coalition - the religious conservatives who have waited more than 30 years for the GOP to legislate wholesomeness - the libertarians thought they had no alternative. Surely, the Republicans were better than the Democrats. But now the results are in, and inescapable. The outcome of Republican control has been everything Democrats were known for, and libertarians profess to abhor: wasteful government spending, titanic new bureaucracies, federal intrusion in private matters, elective war and a metastasizing national security state.
"Now that Republicans have spent a decade in charge of Congress and five controlling the White House, the federal cesspool that the party vowed to drain 'feels less like a cesspool than a hot tub,' said Stephen Slivinski, the director of budget studies at the Cato Institute. 'Republicans just don't act like the party of Goldwater or Reagan anymore,' he told his fellow libertarians at the think tank here last week. The era of Big Government isn't over, as Bill Clinton once professed. 'It's been replaced by something far worse,' said Slivinski, 'the era of Super-Sized Government - and for that we have Republicans to thank.'[...]
"Given complete control, the GOP has failed, Slivinski argues. The party embraced the expediency of Richard Nixon, and climbed under the sheets with venal special interests and corrupt lobbyists. Like the corrupt political machines of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he says, the party's over-arching purpose is now self-perpetuation, whatever the cost. 'Cutting government spending now runs contrary to Republican political aims,' Slivinski writes. 'Today the GOP is so closely aligned with the mechanisms of Big Government that it finds itself unable and unwilling to shut the contraption down. The corruption scandals that have afflicted the Republican Party ... are a natural by-product.'[...]
"Washington is most restrained - militarily and fiscally - when power is divided among the parties, Slivinski argues: In the course of American history, the country has more frequently gone to war under one-party government, and 'united government gives us government that grows twice as fast.' One need look no further back than 1994, when the Republicans captured the House of Representatives and lay siege to Clinton's Oval Office. A divided Washington cut the government's share of the gross domestic product from 20.7 percent to 18.4 percent, and balanced the federal budget. Then the Republicans won the White House. 'This trend was reversed almost immediately after George W. Bush's inaugural parade,' Slivinski writes. 'Together Bush and the Republican Congress managed to expand government spending to 20.8 percent of GDP in 2006. By this standard, they have effectively overturned the Republican Revolution.' For his fellow libertarians, Slivinski has some startling advice: Clap term limits on Republican incumbents, and elect enough Democrats to ensure divided government."
Thanks to the Colorado Lib for the link.
"2008 pres"
9:36:55 AM 
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Here's an update on the contest to host the 2008 Democratic Convention, from the Denver Post. They write, "The three cities vying to host the 2008 Democratic National Convention will have to show fundraising commitments as the national officials look to narrow their choice to two next month. Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul and New York have proved they can meet the basic logistical needs to host more than 30,000 delegates when they nominate the party's next presidential candidate. But whichever city is chosen will have to raise tens of millions of dollars. As the three cities entertained the Democratic National Committee delegates at the Hilton Chicago this weekend, they heard from national officials that it is time to prove their fundraising muster."
"2008 pres"
9:22:10 AM
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Oil and gas development is attracting wide opposition across Colorado (and the West), especially around Rifle and the Roan Plateau, according to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. From the article, "The fight to protect the Roan Plateau and Colorado's roadless areas from energy development has strayed beyond the realm of environmentalists and traditional wilderness advocates. The 'hook and bullet' crowd - hunters, anglers, outfitters and other sportsmen - are now claiming wildland protection as their territory, a development that's being noticed by the energy industry and politicians all over Colorado and the West. The fate of the Roan Plateau and roadless areas on Battlement Mesa is a personal issue for outfitters such as lifelong Republican Jeff Mead, owner of Rifle-based Mamm Peaks Outfitters. Since gas rigs began drilling near Mead's hunting grounds, he said he's lost nearly $70,000 in business because gas development is driving away Battlement Mesa's big game...
"Conservationists have fought for years to protect the Roan Plateau, which is rich not only in natural gas, but also in oil shale. More development is on the way for the Roan: 21 additional permits to drill have been issued for private land on the plateau, said Commission hearings manager Tricia Beaver. Below the Roan Plateau's dramatic southern rim, which towers over Parachute and Rifle, the landscape bustles with natural gas drilling activity - something Western Slope residents have become accustomed to in recent years. But fears that potential natural gas development will mean the end to hunting, fishing and wilderness on many public lands throughout the West have drawn together a diverse crowd of sportsmen and environmentalists who are fighting energy development affecting public wildlands. Mead and other sportsmen have teamed up with environmental groups such as the Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop and the Colorado Mountain Club to protect the state's roadless areas from development. Elsewhere, sportsmen are joining forces with the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club...
"Mead said his alliance with the Wilderness Workshop has worked, and he gets along well with environmentalists. 'As long as we don't get the extremists involved - some people who don't think you should tie a horse to a tree in the high country,' he said. 'On this gas issue, we're seeing eye to eye.' Natural gas development on Battlement Mesa, which will ultimately determine the viability of his outfitting business, is the fly in his Republican ointment. 'The way it's looking right now, the head of the Republican Party is not doing so good as far as I'm concerned,' he said, referring to President George W. Bush. Mead said Bush's attitude toward wilderness protection doesn't square with his personal conservation ethic. That's what inspired Mead to show up at the June 21 Roadless Area Review Task Force meeting in Glenwood Springs and, while sitting next to Wilderness Workshop Executive Director Sloan Shoemaker, vehemently ask the task force to recommend to Gov. Bill Owens that all of the state's roadless areas be protected from development. Shoemaker said Wednesday the 'hook and bullet crowd's' willingness to speak so loudly in favor of public lands protection is simple: Hunters and anglers participate in recreation to get away from the political process. But now, to maintain that way of life, they are thrust into politics because public lands policies are conflicting with recreation. Trout Unlimited's David Petersen, also a member of the Roadless Area Review Task Force, said he wasn't surprised when outfitters such as Mead had strong words in favor of protecting roadless areas at the task force's public comment meetings. 'They don't see themselves first and foremost as environmentalists,' Petersen said. 'These guys are being put out of business by (energy development), so it wasn't hard to get their attention.'"
"2008 pres"
8:34:22 AM
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© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/15/09; 11:51:40 AM.
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