Being "Republican" became in vogue when Reagan came along and started pushing lassez faire and tax relief in order to bolster supply side economics. I will not get into my take (at this time) on why supply side economics is probably inferior to demand side economics.

But, there's no denying that the big rave came when everyone climbed aboard the bandwagon in the 1980's. We were cutting taxes, cutting spending and going to thin down government. That philosophy is what made us Republicans become Republicans. The Dems had it all wrong. The private sector deserved all the money - not government. We saw it in the Gramm-Rudman Act, for example, where deficit spending was to be outlawed. Of course, it didn't last.

Here's where the Republicans have woefully failed to deliver: They said they were going to clean house and cut spending, but did they? To the contrary. They spent more and more and more. Now, everything budget-wise is talked about in terms of crisis. Even under the Republicans, the government has continued to grow at an astronomical pace. The more you feed it, the bigger it gets, and the bigger it gets, the more you need to feed it.

These Republicans pitched a big lie - posing themselves as having a superior understanding of the financial aspects of our government than the Democrats. The fact is the Republicans, as a whole, are no better than the average stiff who walks around carrying 6 maxed-out credit cards and wondering why life is so difficult.

Not that the Dems are offering any hope to resolve this problem. But the facts are the facts. You cannot count on Republicans to clean up and "put our financial house in order."

Of course, WE THE PEOPLE, are as much to blame. If Connecticut gets money for "project X," Texans want money for "project Y." So, we are quite happy to see our representatives bring us money - especially when we see our neighbors getting money.

What the people need to do is "just say NO THANKS." But as long as it is Connecticut vs. Texas vs. Colorado vs. Florida in terms of extracting as much federal dollars as they can, that's what your representatives will do. That's why we have huge deficits and a growing debt. It is bad financial sense. The Republicans are guilty as sin and do not deserve to claim any superiority over the Dems at all.

Until we get representatives that practice the Golden Rule of finance, it ain't going to get any better. Golden Rule: Cash is King!

It either gets better through an independent, limited-purpose party, or we need to watch what happens carefully and vote for the man and not the party. Now that we see all the mid-term election ads, it is noteworthy how so many candidates claim they "brought in over $9 billion to improve our public schools," "going to give research for alternative energy sources the funding it deserves," "vow to insure prisons aren't under-funded and criminals are put out on the street," etc., etc.

Whenever you see these, just reduce it to what it is: "got another $9 billion out of you for this," "will suck some more out of you for this," "will suck some more out of you for that."

It's time to start judging candidates and congressmen for how much they spend and not how they spend. Sure, everyone could use a better "this" and a nicer "that," but that does not mean we go out and spend the money on it - especially considering we have to plan for wealth accumulation and hopefully, a decent retirement.

When I went to school, we had a main building, a few T-shacks for overflow, and an open field surrounded by a track and bleachers for sports. Now, we have college-looking campuses with state-of-the art arena sports facilities. What a joke! ... and you can't blame it on the Dems!

This is the mentality of all those credit-card junkies we have in office. All of them. - Rant Over -