The American Conservative Party

I am hard pressed to find a better illustration of a) Republican hypocricy, and b) why the "Tea Party" movement should have little or nothing to do with the GOP.  This is from the CATO Institute's Website.

The Washington Times recently used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain letters sent to the USDA by numerous Republican lawmakers seeking stimulus money for their constituents. All of these Republicans hadpublicly criticized the stimulus and voted against it.

Georgia Rep. John Linder wrote on his website in October that recent unemployment figures "only reinforce the fact that the $787 billion 'stimulus' signed into law eight months ago has done nothing for job growth in this country." But just two weeks earlier the congressman had sent a letter to Secretary Vilsack on behalf of a foundation in his district seeking stimulus funds in which he claimed "the employment opportunities created by this [foundation’s] program would be quickly utilized." 

Remember South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson who infamously shouted “You lie!” during President Obama’s speech to Congress in September? Here’s what he had to say in a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack on behalf of a foundation in his district: 

“We know their endeavor will provide jobs and investment in one of the poorer sections of the Congressional District.” 

According to his spokeswoman, Rep. Wilson opposed the stimulus as a "misguided spending bill," but wanted to make sure his constituents "receive their share of the pie." That’s pretty much the same excuse the rest of the GOP lawmakers gave: the stimulus is bad but my constituents deserve their “fair share.”
 
So much for principles.
 
Speaking of principles, it’s stories like this that should give the burgeoning tea party movement pause before getting too close to GOP politicians. I spoke to a newly formed group of a hundred or so tea partiers in southern Indiana back in December. The vast majority was concerned about Washington’s spending addiction and Beltway encroachment on their lives. In the two hours I fielded questions, only one brought up illegal immigration and nobody brought up Obama’s birth certificate. They weren’t worried about Muslims and gays – they were worried about what the mounting federal debt meant for their children and grandchildren’s future.
 
Therefore it was disconcerting to read that the organizers of this past weekend’s Tea Party Convention in Nashville brought in Tom Tancredo and Sarah Palin to speak. Tancredo’s agenda was typically nasty and counterproductive, while Palin’s combined her formulated hockey mom shtick with a sophomoric jingoism that should have appalled devotees of limited government. Yet, according to the video of her speech, the crowd loved it.
 
Instead of spending $100,000 on Palin, I suggest Tea Party organizers bring in my colleague John Samples to speak at the next convention. (John’s worth $100,000 but can be had for considerably less.) John recently wrote a column, entitled “Tea Partiers Shouldn’t Date the GOP,” that every budding tea partier should read.
 
Here’s an excerpt: 

The quality that gives the Tea Party movement its legitimacy is that it is so fundamentally illegitimate: outside the establishment, bereft of representation on K Street, and without an identifiable face to speak for it on Meet the Press. This is a movement that sprang deep from within the viscera of America, not from some political poll or focus group. 

It is not Republican; it is not even conservative. It has no interest in debating the merits of No Child Left Behind, abstinence-only sex education or George W. Bush's rationale for going to Iraq. Replacing a "spend and borrow" Democrat with a "spend and borrow" Republican is not the goal of the Tea Party movement. 

This movement is simply saying: "We are fine without you, Washington. Now for the love of God, go attend a reception somewhere, and stop making health care and entrepreneurship more expensive than they already are."

I hope John’s right because if the movement allows itself to become entangled with the same party that publicly eschews big government stimulus while groveling behind the scenes for a piece of it, the [tea] party will be over.

An excellent article on what the Healthcare discussion is actually about.  An excerpt:

...Many people suppose that the heart of the disagreement is over whether or not to expand coverage to more people. It is, of course, a primary objective of the Democratic sponsors of the current initiative to ensure that every American, or nearly so, is enrolled in some kind of health insurance plan on a continuous basis.

But Republicans are not opposed to expanding coverage to the uninsured. In 2008, presidential candidate John McCain proposed a plan which would have provided to every American household a tax credit which could only be used to purchase a health insurance policy. It was, in a very real sense, a "universal coverage" plan in that it sought to ensure that every American would have the financial wherewithal, provided by the federal government, to acquire some level of health insurance protection. The issue, then, is not over expanding coverage to all.

No, the real sticking point between the two sides is really about allocating resources in the health-care sector. Both sides agree that the status quo is unsustainable, largely because costs are rising much more rapidly than wages or governmental revenues. The crucial question is what to do about the problem. Put differently, the question health-care reform advocates must answer is this: what process will be put in place to bring about continual improvement in the productivity and quality of patient care? That might strike some as something of a technical question, not one of fundamental importance. But, in reality, it's just another way of saying that resources are scarce and must be allocated in some fashion. The only way to slow rising costs without lowering the quality of care provided is to improve the efficiency of the interactions between doctors and hospitals and those they care for. The question before policymakers is what is most likely to lead to better care at less cost...

Perhaps one day, Congress will actually have the limited and enumerated Government argument.  Right now, they're perfectly content trying to determine which side of them has the best idea on how to interfere with the market...one wants to take it over and the other just wants to give away taxpayer money.  Neither is really concerned with whether the Federal Government should be involved at all.

Read the whole article here.

Our nation, from the bottom up needs our help! 

We need to get back to being a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Every day we hear one more group somewhere arguing for more of what we as a people do not have, and while the folks in Washington or Helena agree to hand over the tax receipts from next year in exchange for their reelection, it has to give us all pause to contemplate how we must look to an outside observer. In just two generations we have gone from a people who would rather go hungry than to ask for a hand out, to a huddled mass clamoring at the feet of our elected elite for table scraps.

We surround them!

They are supposed to work for us! From our school boards to our city councils and all the way to Washington, we have lost control over the hired help. And the best that we can hope for from our two party system, is grid-lock.  The time has passed for waiting for someone to come lead us out of bondage, get up! There is no one better suited than us, and this requires our immediate attention, and it needs to be focused on what is pertinent and prudent.

I believe the platform of the ACP does exactly that. Please take a few minutes to scrutinize the planks and if it is a foundation that is in line with your values please get involved and help us take our country back one school board , one water district and one county at a time.