Sunday, January 18, 2009
If the conservative movement is looking for a new standard-bearer, a new champion, I suggest Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert.
He's a new hero of mine, the kind of independent Texan who makes the Nugent family proud to be residents of the last best place in the last best place.
Unlike Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who wants to toss the second installment of the $350 billion taxpayer dollar bailout at Wall Street and hope that this massive wad of cash sticks and does something positive for the economy, Gohmert, a Tyler Republican, instead wants to give Americans a two-month tax holiday. He also advocates that taxpayers should pay no federal income taxes for 2008.
That's right, a two-month, $350 billion tax holiday and no income taxes for 2008.
This would be massive wads of your money staying in your pockets where it belongs, surely doing more for the sagging economy than using it to bail out Wall Street or the automotive industry.
I suggest a monument to Gohmert on the Capitol Mall for these great ideas.
Of course, Fedzilla enablers such as Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reject Gohmert's proposal because they believe government knows how to better spend your money than you do.
Gohmert understands that reducing the size of government is the key to an American economic revival. Federal income taxes, FICA, state income taxes, death taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, gas taxes, permit taxes, license taxes, registration taxes, hidden taxes, etc., are what is killing the American economy.
When the government takes half of what we earn, it is not surprising that Americans are not saving anything.
Tax cuts are always the answer to jump-starting the economy. It appears even President-elect Obama is beginning to see that simple economic truism.
Taxpayers are partially to blame for the financial mess created by Fedzilla. We have sat idly by and drank the bureaucratic Kool-Aid and slowly surrendered our financial independence to big-government bureaucrats.
We should have been snarling watchdogs of the bureaucrats with our tax dollars stuffed in their bloated wallets.
If Obama is the new political messiah to millions of Americans who do not know how the economy works or why tax cuts are always good for the economy, then Congressman Gohmert is a new superhero to millions of Americans. They want to return tax dollars to the people who earned them.
Thomas Jefferson said it best; "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
Ya think?
What America needs now more that ever is more elected officials like Gohmert. He understands that individuals and businesses are the engines that drive our economy, not a bloated, ineffective, lethargic, wasteful Fedzilla that destroys everything it touches.
More government bailouts and spending are not the answer. They are the problem.
Ted Nugent is a Waco-based musician and television show host. Contact him directly at tednugent.com.
