Rick Santorum is rising. He has momentum after his Iowa primary finish. What he had was luck. The volatile crowd of people in the Republican party trying on different candidates for size tried on Santorum at the time the voting booth opened. He hasn’t been vetted yet.
It’s time to vet.
I am not a fan of Rick Santorum’s view of politics. To me, he is a big government conservative. More Bush like than Reagan. His rise came from the socially conservative wing of the Republican party. They are looking for a viable candidate, because they don’t trust Romney and the other ones that support their views have fallen. The electorate isn’t in the mood for big government anymore, unless of course they profit from it.
On social issues, Santorum would rather have government dictate to the population rather than let individuals make up their own mind. Top down social engineering rather than bottom up. Santorum is more than happy to have a government bureaucrat write a rule or regulation that prohibits you from doing something than aligning economic incentives correctly so people would make good decisions for themselves.
On fiscal issues, when Santorum had a vote, he consistently voted for big government. Expansion of all kinds of federal entitlement programs were voted on positively by him. Those programs are killing us and threatening to sap our freedom, drop by drop. He voted against NAFTA, and opposes free trade. He supports government subsidies to industries that lead to more crony capitalism. He talks about a tax cut, but big government conservatives tax plans are just more IRS gobbleygook. It would not surprise me if Santorum came out in favor of targeted value added taxes (VAT) that picked winners and losers for trade. The best way to simplify the tax code is to eliminate all write offs, and have one low flat tax that applies to everyone, even corporations.
The biggest difference between big government Democrats and Santorum is their sharp split on abortion(most Democrats are anti-gay marriage), and the fact that Santorum would rather send government money to Republican cronies and not Democratic ones. Their splits don’t revolve around shrinking the size of government, but just who is going to be on the receiving end of a government check.
We need people like that out of government, not in government. Santorum has about as much in common with the Tea Party as Obama does.
The “compassionate conservatism” idea should be a thing of the past. It doesn’t work. Americans bought that line once, it won’t work again. Fiscal issues are the most important part of this election. We know where Obama stands. He has consistently been for big government, crony capitalism, unions, and typical Democratic spending. Santorum is a synonym to Obama, except the money will flow to Republican favorites.
While Santorum would probably be a slightly better President than Obama, we can do a lot better. There are four better candidates in the race right now, Perry, Romney, Gingrich, and Huntsman. Hopefully voters in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida will vote to keep Santorum in the private sector.
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