If you feel the government should leave you alone, you're a Republican. If you think the job of the government is to go push people around and take things for you, then you're a Democrat.
If you're so committed to liberty that you see the Soviet Union as a threat, you're a Republican. If you're kind of indifferent to freedom and the level of the lack of freedom in the Soviet Union is just a question of extent and not really threatening to anybody, then you're a Democrat.
Reforming Social Security to make it fully funded and independently held, that's compassionate because it allows people to control their own lives; cutting taxes on families and all Americans to let people have more control over their lives.
Conservatives should insist that defense spending be examined with the same seriousness that we demand in examining the books of those government agencies that spend taxpayer money in the name of welfare, the environment, or education.
We laugh at liberals who declare that their favorite spending programs should be exempt because the spending is for a noble cause.
Spending should be transparent. All spending by the Pentagon should be online. Every check. Exceptions should be made for legitimate national security issues. But military and civilian pay and retirement benefits are not state secrets. This has already been done in many state governments.
Spending is not caring. Spending is what politicians do instead of caring. Spending more does not guarantee success. Politicians like to measure spending because it is easier than measuring actual metrics of accomplishment.
Someday I hope Americans will not believe that anyone had to spend his or her days fighting for limited government because everyone they know wants maximum freedom and minimum statism.
People learn their politics at a young age and tend to stick with it.
Smaller government, more individual responsibility, more individual control creates more Republicans. More state power and ownership and control and top-down decision-making creates more Democrats.
As more and more Americans own shares of stock, more and more Americans understand that taxing businesses is taxing them. Regulating businesses is taxing them. They ought to be thinking long-term about their ownership, not just their income, and that they should pay taxes on capital, as well as taxes on labor.
The problem is government spends too much. So raising taxes is what politicians do, instead of reducing spending.
If you have to change the law to get more money, that's a tax increase, and Americans for Tax Reform supports all efforts of tax reform, getting rid of deductions or credits, or something that's misclassified, as long as you at the same time reduce rates so that it's not a hidden tax.
I'm for tax reform, not tax increases.
The American taxpayers are a powerful force. They don't want their taxes raised.
I was an anti-communist before I was political in other ways.
What's hurting the U.S. economy is total government spending. The deficit is an indicator that the government is spending so much money that it can't even get around to stealing all of the money that it wants to spend. But the tip of the iceberg is not what hit the Titanic - it was the 90 percent of the iceberg under water.
The Republican Party and the conservative free market movement have been presidentially focused for too long.
The taxpayer group in every state is always - always referred to as nuts.
People who are willing to stick to a strong pro-life position aren't going to be pushed off a strong anti-tax position. For people who like to think in ideologically cohesive ways, it makes no sense, but that's the way it is.
