THE REPUBLICAN WAVE

As of this writing President Obama has agreed on a compromise with the Republicans to, among other things, extend the so-called Bush tax cuts. There is also an extension of unemployment benefits for another thirteen months. Now you can draw unemployment for over three years without a break. That’s enough time to get a complete college education at the taxpayer’s expense, but I digress. As Obama has said, the compromise includes items that almost everyone could find fault with as well as agree with. Everyone, that is, except the left wing of the Democrat party. They appear to be up in arms. It would seem that to them a compromise is an agreement between two parties that only one side agrees with. In other words it is either their way or the highway.

Now I don’t want to be the one to pour water on their party but, in two weeks or so the Republicans will be in charge of the House and the Senate will have the barest of a majority of Democrats. If the left wing is unhappy this month, imagine how they will be next month and for the next several years.

You will notice I said the next several years and not just the next two years. I read recently that the Democrats have reconciled themselves to the fact that the Republicans have ridden this great wave and it “crested” on Election Day. Well I have some bad news for the Democrats. The wave has not yet crested. In fact it may not crest for several years yet. In my view the Democrats who survive the next few elections are going to have to learn how to compromise with the Republicans in order to be relevant at all.

This country has lived through two years of complete Democrat control and on seeing the result has decided to change the way things are done. This is terrible news for deeply entrenched liberals from both parties who are living in some dream world all by themselves. There is a big country out there and they will be heard. They have and will continue to put their collective foot down. It is not going to be business as usual.

I know this is not going to be comforting news for some of my Democrat friends out there. I know many of you read these columns as you often comment on their content. But the news is good. The country will prosper under new ideas. We need to put people back to work, not just continuing to collect benefits to be unemployed. Jobs are produced when there are markets for products. Jobs are produced when there are needs that are unfulfilled. Jobs are produced when unbridled and unfettered ingenuity is cut lose on the society. The government doesn’t produce jobs. Their only role is to create an environment whereby entrepreneurs can feel like they have a chance for success, then get out of the way. That situation is at hand.

Successful Democrats in future elections as well as successful Republicans are facing a different world. The first order of business is to read the Constitution and understand what the role of government is in America. We don’t want to be Europeans. We reject socialism. We support individual responsibility. We endorse individual initiative and hard work. We support taxation if it is done responsibly, honestly, and fairly with responsible spending of those tax dollars.

I believe the so-called Republican wave is actually an American wave. That wave is rapidly becoming a tsunami, and that is good news for all of us. The crest is yet to occur and the best is yet to come.

Ron Scarbro December 8, 2010