By Eric Burlison, former House representative
We’ve been disappointed too many times by politicians who campaign one way but govern another way. It’s vogue for Republican candidates to campaign as “conservative”, but it is rare to see office-holders actually govern as a conservative. Why? Because truly governing as a conservative is very hard.
When it comes to spending, it is so much easier to say “yes” to every need and allow the government to increase until tax increases become the only option. It’s difficult to effectuate the diligent work of uncovering waste and prioritizing expenditures. It’s difficult to say “no” to the insatiable appetites of the innumerable government programs who all desire to grow their empires under the false belief they can solve the problems of man-kind if they only had a little more funding. Which is why I’m impressed to see Gov. Greitens kick things off with proposed a budget reduction of $146 million dollars, and more impressed he announced he wouldn’t spend tax-payer money to build stadiums, correctly calling it corporate welfare.
It’s easy to campaign on “cutting red tape.” But it’s difficult to actually cut regulations when it means taking on the establishment and their armies of lobbyists. You see, what most people don’t know is that those regulated often embrace the red-tape because it stifles or kills their smaller competition. In short, big business loves big government. Which is why I pleased to see that Speaker Todd Richardson and Gov. Greitens are taking on burdensome employment regulations and ecstatic to see them complete their campaign pledges to sign Right-to-Work into law.
How refreshing to see elected officials carrying out what they campaigned.
