Big Ideas, Not Big Government

At this point, it is fairly clear that the outcome of November's election is not going to be good for the Democrats. What's not clear, though, is whether it will be good for the Republicans. A surging anti-incumbent sentiment has already unseated several high-ranking party members of both parties, including Benedict Arlen Specter himself, and Senator Bennett of Utah.

Regardless of the outcome of the election, it's clear that there will be a good deal of new blood in Congress. Let us hope that it comes with new ideas as well. To that end, I'd like to encourage you to check out a site launched by the House Republicans to solicit policy suggestions, and give you (and me) a place to speak out for better solutions for our current problems than are being offered by the current Administration. The site is at http://www.americaspeakingout.com/. In a manner similar to the Contract from America, the site intends to solicit policy suggestions and discussion by the American public. Since the launch of the site on Tuesday, May 25, the site has been up and down, dragged down by the volume of traffic -- most of which, at times, seems to be coming from the Democrat astroturf machine. As of late, things seem to have stabilized a bit, possibly because the SEIU thugs have lost interest in bashing Bush, Christians, and Republicans). And due to the volume of traffic and negative comments on the site, it's all the more important that we of Conservative mindset dilute the negativity on the site.

It's time that those of us with Conservative ideology begin to offer some new ideas, and this is a site that exists for such a purpose. It's not that "old" Conservative ideology doesn't work: It's that sometimes there is a disconnect between an ideology and a specific policy. We can be guided by our ideology, while offering new (and specific) policy suggestions to fix what's broken in Washington. And lateley, it seems to me that many people who recognize that our government is badly broken seem to get stuck in a rut, falling back to the same two or three policy suggestions:

• Abolish the IRS and implement the fair tax.
• Implement term limits for Congress.
• Cut taxes
  

And while these suggestions do address specific failings of our government, I don't think they go far enough: Variations on the theme of cutting taxes and reducing the size of government are great; but what about enacting policies that ensure that government can never grow large again (regardless of what clown is in power) -- what about placing an absolute cap on the amount of money the Federal government can spend every year? Likewise, term limits may limit the career of one bad apple who happens to be a career politician; but what about a policy that allows the recall of the entire Congress when enough Americans are disgusted with the Congressional antics?

It's time that we all work together to brainstorm some newer, bigger ideas that will be sure to defeat Big Government, and a site like AmericaSpeakingOut is a great place to do that. The Big Ideas will catch on, even if the House Republicans aren't listening (as some have asserted).