How Conservative can you be?

The typical conservative claims to believe in smaller government, reduced spending and reduced taxation, but their actions go against this supposed belief. Recently I have been hearing Republicans and self-proclaimed conservatives railing against these very stances in opposition to political opponents.

In Florida the governor’s race is seemingly between Incumbent Republican Governor Rick Scott and former Governor Charlie Crist, who while governor was in the Republican party but later switched to an Independent and finally settling with his current party affiliation in the Democrat Party. The campaign ads against Charlie Crist are easy fallacies and half-truths; they are simply hit and run ads trying to come across as something meaningful and worthwhile. The first issue the Republican Party and conservatives are harping on is that under the current Governor the State is spending MORE on education than ever before and calling the Charlie Crist era the worst decrease in educational spending.

Yes you read that correctly, they are saying that reduced spending is bad and increased spending is good.

To Charlie Crist’s benefit I can say this, his time is office was during the greatest recession (some calling it a depression) in our lifetime, so far anyways...

So why does this matter? The Republican Party would like you to believe that what transpired under Crist was solely on his hands, reduced spending on education, high unemployment, record numbers of foreclosures in the state and the number of businesses dropping was not an isolated incident only in the State of Florida, but a result of a National Recession, Housing Market Crash and Wall Street Problems. Another thing to remember in this is that everything the Republican Party of Florida is using for cannon fodder in these ads was passed under a Republican led state legislature. Now that those conditions have cleared up, or have been covered over, whichever you believe, the current Governor, Scott can seem a better alternative to Crist. But anyone who looks at the issue from the stance of the conservatives should clearly see the hypocrisy in the campaign against Crist.

Though not endorsing anyone for this race, if you live in Florida please be aware there are other options, and also consider abstaining from voting at all.

This trend of saying you believe in one thing and acting another way isn't confined to the State of Florida. This mentality is nationwide. It seems to be just the nature of politics and the want for power and control. Republicans and Conservatives will champion a policy of reduced spending, except in key areas mainly Military and National Security. These two areas in particular are the holiest of holies in terms of non-negotiable items to be reformed or reduced. The annual spending in these two areas have been increased in the last few years with many Republicans voting in favor of the increases. Adding to these costs is the added departments and bureaus being introduced and bolstered by increased funding. All of this flies in the face of the stated stance of Conservatives and yet they see no problem with it. Florida isn't the only state where this is happening either, it is a widespread issue.

Now the call for the Border Fence comes in. 

In the past few weeks an increase of people coming to the American-Mexican border has increased. This increase has rekindled the debate for immigration reform and adding more funding to building a border security fence, adding border patrol agents, buildings and in the most extreme cases using military troops to repel immigrants by force if necessary. But all of this costs. It costs money and the only way the government sees to gain this money is to increase taxes to the citizens. This again goes against their stance on reducing spending and lowering taxes.

According to the US Immigration office "It is estimated that between 2000 and 2010, U.S. taxpayers spent $90 billion on securing the U.S.-Mexico border. This includes various expenses such as the cost of deploying 1,200 National Guard troops to the border, which is $110 million per year, the average salary of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent, which is $75,000—in 2010, there were 20,000 CBP agents deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border, the cost of an X-ray machine to peer into cargo trains and trucks, each costs $1.75 million—of which the U.S. uses 165. There is also the cost of building fences, employing drug-sniffing dogs, the use of predator drones, and various other incendiaries." 

Foreign Aid 

Foreign Aid costs the American Taxpayers around $23 billion in 2013, or a total of $37 billion if you include assistance to foreign militaries. This is approximately 1% of the total US Budget. Even this being only 1% of total budget  it is still such a large portion of money coming out of the paychecks and purses of every American Citizen. This is another one of those areas where so called conservatives are anything but. The issue facing Foreign aid is the idea of taking money from the people of one country and handing it over to another. 

Intervention costs money

The Neoconservative War Hawks and Pro Interventionists will fail to grasp that their intervention into affairs of other countries and governments will have an economic impact. Any intervention that is proposed costs money to implement. Whether they wish to send humanitarian aid, food, training, military weapons, to impose sanctions or even blockades, this will always costs taxpayers in the end. Just the intervention in Crimea cost the American people $896 Million.

The War on Drugs and the War on Terror are two more examples of a reluctance to curb spending and instead cast themselves headlong into hypocritical action over their beliefs. These two programs have been dismal failures and have cost not only billions of dollars annually but have also cost the lives of countless people.
The War on Drugs has created a situation that the US is facing now in Mexico where the drug cartels are pushing people towards the borders and have taken over as warring monopolies. 

The War on Terror is the Combination of wasteful spending, increasing budgets and the creation of new and expanding departments. Spending billions in an attempt to "Make Peace by War", it is something that never was, and never will be. 

How Conservative can you be when you support these programs and ideas? How conservative can you really call yourself if you tend to spend more money year after year, raise taxes, build a bigger and more intrusive government? These are just a few of the many ways that conservatives have lost their definition and have went full steam in the opposite direction.