I would like to respond to Robert Gardiner‘s letter (published in the 7/22 – 8/11 edition of the Daily Lobo) regarding his objective observation of the Republican Party. Let me preface my response with a full disclosure: I am a registered Republican, but I’m not enamored with its current establishment and the ruling class mindset that it seems to have these days, also present in the Democratic Party. However, with that said, let me rebut his points.
First, it’s absurd to believe that any party doesn’t want to educate young people, or its population in general. In reality, it is the policies of the Democratic Party that are causing the cost of education to soar.
Subsidizing student loans allows higher education institutions to continue to increase their tuitions. With the availability of money to pay these outrageous fees, universities and colleges know that there will always be people, with the help of loans, able to pay them.
And in primary and secondary education, teacher unions rule the day. They fight against school vouchers that would allow parents to send their kids to better schools. They fight against merit pay that would encourage and reward excellent teachers. The list goes on.
Next, the idea of a “living wage,” or of increases to the minimum wage, seems like a no-brainer. However, forcing companies to pay a particular wage actually hurts entry-level workers.
Many companies can’t hire as many workers, or any workers at all. Low-paying entry-level jobs are just that — entry-level. A good worker should have aspirations of promoting themselves through the workplace with better jobs and better-paying jobs.
Also, people go into business to make money, not provide jobs. Businesses will only provide the number of jobs that they can afford to pay for. By the way, there is more to the cost of providing a job than just the wage (healthcare, insurance, unemployment, etc.).
As for unions, they weren’t too kind to the car companies or the major cities that have been forced to file for bankruptcy.
Besides, no one prohibits anyone from joining a union, but there are many industries in which one has to join a union in order to have a job.
To require a voter ID card does not disenfranchise anyone. You can’t get on a plane, go to the doctor, buy alcohol, drive a car or fill a prescription without a picture ID. Even President Obama touted the idea of voter IDs in Kenyan elections, so why not here?
People who are not legal American citizens should not be able to vote in elections; that’s in the U.S. Constitution. Do you have a better solution to guarantee that only American citizens are voting other than having to show proof of citizenship?
How long should unemployment last? Now it’s anywhere from 26-73 weeks, down from a high of 99 weeks in 2010. How long does it take someone to find a job? Not the perfect job or a better job, or even a similar job, but just a job — or jobs if the case may require — to pay the bills? Yes, people fall on hard times and they may need assistance, but you will have to prove to me that our welfare system and unemployment system are not being severely abused.
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On top of that, those systems are being funded by the people who do work and companies who pay toward unemployment benefits. The idea that paying unemployment and welfare benefits helps the economy is ludicrous. The money that is spent on these programs could be better used in building more businesses (tax breaks) and letting all working individuals keep more of their income through lower tax rates.
We do not have a zero-sum economy. The idea that wealthy people are taking money away from other people is a misunderstanding of how our market-driven, capitalistic economy works.
Wealthy people don’t take their money and hide it under their mattresses. They invest it to make more money. That invested money is used by others in the form of loans, reinvesting in new businesses and growing existing businesses. This feeds the economy by creating more and better-paying jobs, which in turn allows people to move up through the economy.
When I graduated from college my income would have put me at the poverty level. With time and hard work I’m not at the poverty level anymore. Not everyone is born into wealth, but everyone has the opportunity, because of our free market system, to become wealthy. Opportunity is out there for everyone who chooses to work hard with it.
Conservatism, which is what I believe in, believes in the free market/capitalism economy which America was built on. This means less government intervention by trying to engineer economic outcomes, and more freedom of choice and opportunity and the protection of private property — which, by the way, includes personal income. It believes in taking care of the truly needy but not subsidizing the capable.
I will agree with Mr. Gardiner on the point that the Founding Fathers would be appalled at how our elected leaders have misused their powers and have reinterpreted their abilities as stated in the U.S. Constitution. We don’t have public servants, we have career politicians whose only concern is to get re-elected. In doing so, they will say and promote anything they believe will get them votes, even when the very policies they sell as being for the people actual hurt the very people they claim to be helping.
I don’t believe Mr. Gardiner is objective at all, because if he were he would have investigated the reasons behind the opposition to most of the Democrats’ policies instead of repeating their talking points and rhetoric.
Wake up, people. Neither party cares what is in the best interest of the average working citizen. They may claim they do, but for most of them it is all about getting re-elected, which entails raising money and securing votes or securing special interest groups.
Term limits for congress are our only hope of getting politicians to work for us again. There is going to be a movement at the grassroots level to amend the U.S. Constitution by way of state legislatures. It can work — join us.
