Dispatches From San Juan

A Response to Senator Kerry

By “Teddy Roosevelt”

Massachusetts Senator and failed Presidential Candidate John Kerry recently went on a rant before a Boston Chamber of Commerce. Among the things he said was this little bon mot. “We’re in a period of know-nothingism in the country, where truth and science and facts don’t weigh in.”

The Senators little tantrum was brought on by his frustration at the shellacking his party is about to receive in Tuesdays election.

In response I say to Senator Kerry that the on the contrary people are finally looking at the truth.

The truth is that almost every massive Government program of the last 70 years has failed and in many cases made the situation worse.

The New Deal did not end the Great Depression. Johnson’s war on poverty failed and enacted policies that contributed to the break up of families and the degradation of society (don’t believe me this was pointed out by the great Democratic Senator Patrick Moynihan). Social Security and Medicare are headed for bankruptcy. We just recently saw government housing programs contribute to an economic collapse. The No Child Left Behind Act has not improved our schools. These and myriad other programs had grandiose ambitions and failed. Yet what is the response of Democrats. Keep piling on the Government programs. Increasing regulation and taxes are strangling businesses and killing our competitive edge. Yet when Kennedy and Reagan lowered taxes we prospered. Keynsian economic policies touted by Democrats consistently do not produce results while those of Milton Friedman and Charles Laffer which are touted by Republicans have historically produced stellar results.

What is happening today is the continuation of an argument as old as this great Republic. It is an argument about what is the proper role of the Federal Government.

The Ironic part is that leaders who the Democrats claim they descend from Jefferson and Jackson where stalwart defenders of a severly limited role for the federal Government. However even Federalists like Adams and Hamilton would be appalled were they to see our governments reach today.

No Senator you are wrong. People are looking at the facts and based on those facts they are repudiating your Party’s policies of bigger government and returning to our Founding Fathers vision of limited federal government.