Newt is neutered by his staff. Darn it!

I'm just sick --- sick, I tell you, that Newt's staff has dealt his presidential campaign such a fatal blow. And it is. It's over. Everyone knows it right now but Newt. I was so hoping Newt would stay in the race to the end. Beaten around in Iowa, stomped in New Hampshire and slaughtered in SC, and finally, ignored at the convention. I really wanted to hear more about this right wing social engineering concern of his. I wanted to see if his wife would show up anywhere in expensive jewelry. But most of all I was looking forward to those pompous pronouncements he likes to make about nearly everything as if he is delivering some sort of divine revelation from Olympus. Few are the people who have chosen to enter politics in the last century with an arrogance to match his.

I remember well when he was first elected to Congress in 1978. Rep Jack Flynt had successfully deflected Newt's ambitions twice,but when age forced Jack finally to give up the seat, Newt was waiting. He was just a little fig Newt(on) in those days, a professor of history at West Georgia College at Carrollton. He had come to Georgia from his native Pennsylvania in search of a district filled with country rubes who would be easy to manipulate. He found them and waited.

Oh, well, I was hoping for a long, long public flogging of his ego in this race so we could escort him off the political stage permanently. Nevertheless, if the recent resignations of his staff succeed in pulling the plug on his campaign, the nation, indeed, the world will be better served -- and we will all be able to sleep easier at night.

Follow Up to a comment

This posting is a follow up comment for Buttonhall and others who read with interest a previous post: Carping from the Edge:

This may come as a huge surprise to you: it’s not the size of our government that is the problem or the taxes raised or the programs we support or even the waste that amounts to pennies falling off a table.

Our government is large because it serves 309 million people, not the 4 million people we had when the government was formed in 1776. It is large because it is the leader of the free world. We provide the aid others need, in all the forms in which it is needed, including defense. We provide all the services our people demand – all of them, including those demanded by you and me, not just the “welfare cheats that drive Cadillacs to the grocery store or just won’t help themselves when it is too easy to ask for a handout.”

For the current fiscal year, the US government is spending $113 billion for the two Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The government is asking for $107 billion more for the next year even though bin Laden has been killed. We have been in those two countries for almost 10 years. It is that spending (several trillion dollars altogether) and the tax cuts Bush imposed on us together with the lack of oversight by financial regulatory agencies that caused most of the turmoil in our economy Obama is now dealing with. We will not recover overnight, not by cutting out all waste, not by cutting somebody's favorite program, not by cutting the federal budget “across the board by 10%” or some such magical formula. It’s going to be a long hard slug…through increases in taxes, scaling back our ambitious global defense posture, and restructuring the entitlement programs that benefit us all. Make no mistake about it: it will take a full generation to recover from the Bush misdeeds. We will recover sooner if innovations in energy production and alternative energy sources come to market on an economically feasible scale.

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It has been a large government for oh, about 100 years, by any definition you care to use. It will be larger in the future. And the Rs will still say, “What we need is a smaller government.” No, we need a government that makes wise decisions, exercises good judgment, and helps citizens understand its complexity. But that doesn’t sell newspapers or cause people to tune in. So, it doesn’t get much air time or ink. But in order to survive, we need elected officials who will make hard decisions in our best interest even if we tell them we might not vote for them again. Sometimes, the people do NOT know what is good for them. Sometimes, even when they do know what is good for them, they don’t want elected officials to take the action that will be in their long term best interest, preferring instead for the short term fix, the politically expedient view. We are a sad lot, we voters.

It is also a government that relies on taxes paid in, yours and mine. There’s nothing wrong with taxes. Taxes work for the common good. Thank God most of us are willing to pay our share. We need to be sure ALL pay their fair share and not let those who can afford to influence the tax code “play it” for all they are worth -- because they will.

Depending on how you count it, between 66% and 85% of taxes go for Defense, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the national debt. About 15% is left for discretionary spending. You could cut out all discretionary spending and make only a small dent in the debt. I’m talking about cutting out the entire Executive Department and the entire Legislative Branch of government. That’s what’s in that remaining annual 15%. In other words, you can’t get there from here.

You have to start by cutting defense spending, slowing the rate of growth of all entitlement programs, raising the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare, raising taxes on the wealthy a lot, and raising taxes on everybody else a proportionate amount. It is not easy; it is not simple. AND if anyone in this Congress votes for any of the above items I have listed, we voters will make sure they are on the street looking for a job after the 2012 elections. And that's a fact.

See what I mean. We won’t let our elected officials do – actually DO – what is in our best long term interest.