Gut Check Time

At 11:00 am central time today, the United States officially swore in its first socialist president. Most of us are wondering what the first few policy issues Obama will address are.

Will it be the massive socialist economic stimulus package or repealing Bush’s Executive Order on embryonic stem cells? Or will he use his massive political capital to force socialized health care down our throats? Maybe he will just chip away slowly at our rights in order to lull us all into submission.

We have a very tough fight ahead of us starting today – right now. We don’t have to wait for his honeymoon to wear off. We all know Democrats didn’t with Bush. We have to take it at Obama and his liberal allies with more vigor than the left has ever come at us. We can’t let the public forget about ACORN, Rev. Wright, and Bill Ayers. We also need members of our Party to expand our opposition research and not be afraid to expose crooks and liars in both parties and at all levels of government.

At the same time we are going to need to offer alternatives. We can’t continue to just voice our opposition to health care, gay marriage, government takeovers, and illegal immigration. We must come up with plans that don’t compromise our conservative ideology but still move this country forward.

For example, with health care we need to offer free market alternatives like expanding HSAs. We need to talk more about tort reform – but come up with a different term, nobody knows what tort reform is. With government takeovers we need to keep banging the drum of lower taxes and fewer regulations. We must continue to bolster the private sector while educating the public on the failures of big government.

And finally we absolutely have to get behind our conservative leaders. No one man or woman is going to be perfect for all of us but there are many who are really close. We have to get behind folks like Mike Pence, John Shadegg, Marsha Blackburn, Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn, and our very own Steve King and Tom Latham. Members of Congress are in the fight everyday and need all the support we can give them.

I realize most strong support in politics comes from passion for a cause. Republicans haven’t had a cause in some time now. But with Obama’s inauguration today, we should have no shortage of passion because he will take this country in a direction we have never seen and at a sprinter’s pace.