I took the RNC Survey

I consider myself an Independent. I’m pretty sure that’s the box I’ve checked most of the past 16 years. I lean Democrat, especially when Republicans start doing idiotic or dangerous things, like putting Sarah Palin up for the second highest office in the land. But this week, I signed up for both parties’ Facebook, Tweets, and emails, to stay informed.

And in my first GOP email was a survey about what is important to the party moving forward. So I thought that was an opportune time to let them know what I feel ought to be important to Republicans, if they want my vote.

I didn’t expect to learn much from this experience but I think I did. One main concept that hit home was what was implied by the idea that Republicans want smaller government AND lower taxes. These were both options available in a multiple-choice test of my priorities.

I chose smaller government, because, in theory, I favor a LEAN government. An efficient one. But what hit home for me was that lower tax rates was a way of reducing the size of government, because, without revenue, the government must scale back. Taken too far, this would be very detrimental to our society, and I think we are already seeing evidence of this: reduced spending on higher education; reduced funding for court systems, etc.

Government must be adequately funded to protect the interest of its citizens. When this gets eroded, the people must demand proper funding.

It’s ironic that the Tea Party has become a radical right wing movement, as what our forefathers wanted was the ability to be represented and taxed properly. But the conservatives now keep singing “taxes kill business growth”, because they know that playing on people’s job insecurities is a winning strategy in our current economy. If we continue to let big businesses skate by untaxed, the government will have less and less power to reign in corporate interests over public good.

And that would be Intolerable. That would require Revolution.