The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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September 19, 2012

Your View: Not this conservative

By Anson Burlingame Special to The Globe

JOPLIN, Mo. — The headline on Susan Redden’s column (Globe, Sept. 17) stated, “Area conservatives support Akin.” Well not this conservative, and I suspect many others as well. No, Akin is not a “moron” or other names called by his detractors. He simply is far too radical in his conservatism, at least for me.

As a conservative, an independent conservative, I have long supported the fundamental call by the tea party to reduce the size, cost and range of responsibilities of the federal government. I need only reflect on the manner in which such responsibilities have grown for that government over the past 50 years, along with skyrocketing cost (debt and deficits) in the past 11 years to make that point. Bottom line: The size of the federal government must come down along with the cost of that government, and the Constitution should be our guide in doing so, over time.

Just that statement alone will cause many progressives to call me a “radical,” “un-American,” etc., and of course I disagree. But take on that challenge in the manner in which Akin has espoused and there I claim is your “radical.” No, Akin is not a bad man of any sort. I just disagree with his political goals — a “quick fix,” if you will, for our federal government’s problems.

I suggest that readers consider the last three paragraphs of Bob Woodward’s most recent book, the “The Price of Politics.” The fundamental problem in America today is we spend far too much money. One side — the Akin side — wants to cut taxes and drastically reduce spending now. The other side wants to increase spending and raise taxes on the rich only.

However, over the past four years we have neither cut spending (particularly the huge automatic increases in spending each year driven by entitlement spending) nor raised taxes, significantly. As a result, our deficits remain far too high, and national debt is simply unsustainable with no “fix” in sight.

For that we can thank the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Todd Akin and, yes, Billy Long, along with a host of others. And President Barack Obama, unfortunately, has failed miserably to lead our Congress out of that stalemate.

Elect Todd Akin, however, and we will simply endure more and more stalemate and thus go right over the looming fiscal cliff.

Anson Burlingame

Joplin

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