Tom Cole on His Town Meetings
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, says in a column that President Barack Obama is changing America’s basic characteristics.
“During the past two weeks I hosted a series of town halls throughout the Fourth District. These meetings were an important opportunity for me to listen, take questions and provide answers directly to my constituents. While the questions were diverse, a sizable number of them revolved around policies that the President has proposed or implemented since taking office. Many Oklahomans are deeply concerned over the President’s out of control spending, as well as with his apparent neglect of our nation’s military. While he is clearly committed to growing the size and scope of the federal government, the one area in which he does not propose to spend more is in the defense of our nation. These two issues have Oklahomans gravely concerned.
“Our nation is facing a growing economic crisis the likes of which most of us have never experienced. And while the Oklahoma economy remains relatively strong compared to the rest of the nation, our citizens know that we cannot remain an oasis of prosperity while the rest of the nation sinks ever deeper into recession. Plunging our country deeper into debt and dramatically expanding the federal government’s role in the private sector has hard-working Oklahomans worried that the economic misery that is plaguing the rest of the country may soon be visited upon us.
“The amount of government spending is bad enough, but what makes it even worse is what the money is actually being spent on. In both the stimulus legislation, as well as the President’s proposed budget, the vast majority of spending is going to be used on expanding existing government programs, or imposing government programs in areas currently being served by the private sector. Had this money been used to rebuild our military, or to invest in our crumbling infrastructure, it would have created jobs and helped jump start our economy. Instead, it will be spent to make more people dependent on the government by permanently expanding its role in our day-to-day lives.
“To put things into perspective, the budget presented by President Obama weighed in at $3.55 trillion dollars – an amount that will borrow more than at any time in our nation’s history – and it will also trigger the largest tax increase in American history. The 2010 federal budget proposal is so massive that an independent estimate suggests it would take 250,000 new federal bureaucrats to spend it all. And those borrowed billions will come from China, the Middle East, and other nations who own a large-portion of our growing debt. Oklahomans instinctively know that this does not bode well for the future of our country.
