Fool's Gold

From an LCYD Member:

I was raised by a die-hard Republican and a true-to-the-bone Libertarian. At first glance one would think that these two could never get along. After all, Republicans are at the forefront of a massive culture war aimed at depraving individuals whereas the Libertarians argue for the destruction of the government powers that allow intervention. However, these two parties have not always been so distant. There was once a time in which both parties shared a banner of fiscal conservatism and small government. These days it is more likely to see a Democrat advocating small government in Florida than it is to see a Republican. True to behold the Sunshine State Republicans have all but turned their back on the Reagan-ite economics of old to embrace a new platform of spending voters’ money on… well, themselves.

Among the many bills passing through the legislature this session, there was a fairly innocuous elections reform bill. It started off with only mild travesties: damage to the early voting system, the devolvement of constitutionally elected elections officers, and various other undercuts to the voting system. At that point the most damaging clause within it was the increase of powers to the Secretary of State, a partisan appointed officer which a few years ago the legislature tried to do away with. Overall it was a bad bill, but not horrible, not terrifying. Once the amendments started hitting the floor all of that changed.

About six in ten Americans believe that candidates spend too much money on their campaigns. This is quite a few voters when one considers the margins on which elections are won these days. Apparently, though, Florida Republicans have not heard this news. In a startling amendment by Representative Reagan, wording about campaign finance changed to increase the amount spent by the state government on each candidate by over 400%. The cap on government campaign “give outs” increased from $5,000,000 to $2 per registered voter, or $22,000,000. This money is not covered in any of the budgets and has no financial backing. The amendment passed along party lines with nearly all Republicans voting for and nearly all Democrats voting against. The Republican owned legislature easily passed the amendment.
This amendment is even more hypocritical and cynical when taken in context with some of the Democrat offered amendments. For example, Representative Gottlieb offered an amendment which would make paper trails for electronic touch-screen voting machines mandatory. Florida is currently the only state to employ such machines. A paper trail would let voters verify that their vote had been correctly counted and ensure that there was no tampering with votes. One would think that in Florida above all other places the verity of votes would be an important cause to all legislators, not just Democrats. But the security of Democracy is not a high priority to Republican legislators these days. Once again the vote was divided along party lines, this time with the Democrats voting yes to safeguard people’s votes and the Republicans voting no. The reason the Republicans gave: it would cost almost $6 million.

The Republicans have turned their back on the people and the people’s money. They would rather spend $22 million a candidate than a simple $6 million to ensure democracy. The fiscal conservatism of the GOP has vanished into legend leaving us only with empty promises and lies. People need to recognize the Florida Republican party for what it is – Fool’s Gold.