Michael Reagan, the eldest son of former President Ronald Reagan, has a nationally syndicated talk radio program, with over 5 million daily listeners.
Reagan has a column today in Human Events entitled, Republicans Lost Because They Lost Their Way, which is worthwhile reading for Republicans as we reflect on Tuesday’s loss of the Senate and House.
He writes, in part:
In September of last year I wrote that unless congressional Republicans put the break on spending “you can bet that the Republican Party is going to lose control of Congress next year, and with Democrats in power government spending will go through the roof.”In 1994 the Republicans took control of Capitol Hill, mostly on the strength of the Contract with America. Over time that contract with America turned into the contract on America.
The GOP leadership allowed some of their number to corrupt their own party. In the notorious, pork-laden “bridge-to-nowhere” transportation bill last year they promised certain earmark goodies to certain members of Congress if they would support the bill. They might have called that politics, but I call it bribery.
That bill contained a mind-boggling 6,371 pet projects, or earmarks. In contrast, my Dad, Ronald Reagan, once vetoed a highway bill because it was loaded down with a mere 152 pet projects.
Over time, the Republican Party gradually became the party they replaced. The line between the two parties got so blurred that it was hard do tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans. In that case, allegiance to a party goes out the window when the public can’t tell the difference between their party and the opposition, and they just rise up and throw the bums out and start all over."
Read the rest of Reagan’s column here.