Dear Governor Romney,
I know you have a lot of expensive political
advisors and professionals who have been at this ‘getting elected’ business a
long time. However, I hoped you might be
open to some thoughts from an ordinary taxpayer out here in the boonies. If not, you know where to file this.
First off, good choice of Paul Ryan. That signals you plan to make the remaining
days of the campaign about issues of concern to the voters out here: jobs, the deficit, the control of
entitlements and healthcare. From the
line up of speakers it looks like the Democrats plan to make the election about
abortion and gay marriage. Good luck
with that.
I’m sure you know that no matter what some
people are going to vote for Obama. He
could be photographed waving the Koran in one hand and a Communist flag in the
other while buggering Bo, the First Family’s dog and the faithful will still
vote for him. This fact was demonstrated
once again when Greta Van Susteren of Fox News was interviewing teachers,
friends and family members of Paul Ryan shortly after his selection for
VP. One, his teacher, who has known Paul
all of his life and respects and admires him, admitted he will not be voting
for the Romney/Ryan ticket. Why? Because
he’s in the teacher’s union and he’s voting his self-interest.
Besides the unionized teachers there are a
few other groups that vote in mass for the Democrats no matter what. The Environmentalists and Trial Lawyers come
immediately to mind. No matter what the
Romney/Ryan campaign might promise these groups, they will never vote for the
GOP candidate. If you acknowledge that
fact, why not go after them?
Let’s start with the Department of
Education. From what I have been able to
determine, the DofEd now has an annual budget of $70 billion, up from $29.4
billion in 2009. What could they
possibly do to justify that amount of money?
It’s just a bunch of bureaucrats living large and not educating one
single student. Look at their org
chart! If ever there was a bloated,
inefficient outfit, this is it. There
are 151 individual programs aimed at educating K thru 12 kids. All that money spent and look at the product
coming out the other end. Soft
target. Hit it hard. It won’t cost you any votes, that’s for sure.
The EPA is another bloated bureaucracy
wielding far too much power and demonstrating Obama’s increasing tendency to
rule by decree. In a recent WSJ piece
(“EPA Smackdown #6”) the Federal Appeals Court just spanked the EPA for a
ruling aimed at putting Texas coal fired electric utilities out of
business. According to the American
Action scorecard this is the 15th time the Obama EPA has been over
ruled.
With the price of oil once again flirting
with $100 per barrel and gas nudging at $4.00 a gallon this is a good time to
go after the enviro-wackos and the out of control EPA. Obama said repeatedly that his policy was
“all of the above… nuclear, oil, coal and gas”.
Bulls___! The first thing they
did was shut down Yucca Mountain ($12
billion down the drain) and go after the coal industry. Then they put all public lands and the coasts
off limits for oil drilling and now they are trying to figure out how to shut
down “fracking”, the enormously successful natural gas method that has cut the
price of natural gas nearly in half. And
today they announced some new CAFÉ standards for autos that mandate 55 mile per
gallon autos by 2025. That will
guarantee adding at least $2000 to the cost of a car and make them all that
much more dangerous to drive. Secretary
of Energy Steven Chu, (by the way, what do those guys at the Department of
Energy do?) famously said that “somehow we need to figure out how to boost the
price of gasoline to the levels of Europe.”
Really? Does eight dollar gas
sounds like a good path to economic prosperity?
Finally, (and I’ll keep this short) it’s
time to take a swipe at the Trial Lawyers.
I know no President ever mentions them because almost all the folks in
Congress are lawyers. But, you and all
businessmen and women know that the tort lawyers add to the cost of everything
in a significant way. They drive people
out of business and add enormous costs to healthcare and insurance. It’s time to put an end to their gravy
train. Go after them and call for
significant tort reform. They give
almost all their money and votes to Democrats anyway. Nothing to lose.
Anyway Sir, good luck to you.
Dick Draper
Dedicated Taxpayer