Sometimes there are some real advantages to being a radio talk show host. There are days when our elected leaders are a real gift to guys like me, usually because they can’t help themselves and they do things that lead people to believe that government is out of control and all is lost. This is of course provides fodder for my show, yet is an opportunity for me to offer solutions to these seemingly indefensible actions by policymakers.

Just prior to Christmas, recent stories have emerged that Oregon’s Governor, Ted Kulongoski, has given another state employee pay raise to placate the public employee unions that pretty much re-elected him last year. Aside from the fact that this is a result of a series of prior missteps with previous pay raises, it represents the worst example of why the citizens don’t trust government: political payoffs to your friends.

Couple this with another story that hit on Christmas Eve about Oregon’s two US Senators, Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith announcing their “gifts” (or bringing home the pork) in the just signed omnibus (ominous is a better descriptor) to our state to the tune of 360 million. This was accomplished with an number of earmarks for projects that really shouldn’t be funded in this manner or by government at all and it received the predictable public reaction in the reader comments section at the end of the story: disbelief, cynicism, calls to end earmarks (right on!), time to take back government etc. was the nature of the thoughts expressed, all leading to a theme of not trusting government.

Then add on a great article by Steve Buckstein of the Cascade Policy Institute regarding his experience observing audience reaction to a line in this weekend's movie release of “Alien vs Predator-Requiem” where one of the characters (about to die I am sure) asks the rhetorical question “The Government wouldn’t lie to us would they?”. Steve describes the reaction as a uniform eruption of laughter and snickering from a movie going audience of largely non political, average folks as instructive in perhaps predicting our chances of reducing government’s size and scope in our lives. Not a good sign, but still an opportunity to convert the masses to demanding a return to fiscal sanity from our leaders.

I know the Governor, Senators Wyden and Smith, like them all a lot personally and know they mean well and think their actions are justified and proper. Yet, they somehow have missed the point of public service to some extent. It isn’t about bringing home the pork, but rather about serving people by not putting in place policies that destroy their economic freedom and lead them into a sort of “tax and regulatory” indentured servitude.

While I expressed this thought in the negative, (“not putting in place policies that destroy”) it is for a reason. As a former state legislator, I know how hard it is to resist the temptation to expand and grow government to unsustainable levels that ultimately require confiscatory levels of taxation and regulation that strangle productivity and ultimately lead Americans to a life that is reminiscent of any one of the failed socialist, planned economies that lie on the “ash heap of history” (thank you Ronald Reagan for that great line).

That’s right! I am saying that sometimes we the citizens need to be protected from our well meaning elected officials who often make bad decisions. (How sad that we aren’t asking them to serve us well in the positive, with proactive policies of freedom and wealth creation).

We can protect ourselves by building a strong, active and effective grassroots network of Oregonians who care about their world enough to take back their government. This will empower the average Oregonian to demand logical, common sense solutions and policies that preserve our economic freedoms and keep alive the opportunity of achieving the “American Dream”. This is largely our mission at AFP Oregon.

Judging by the phone calls from listeners over the last few days, it is obvious that the above mentioned stories (and many others in the past) illustrate why the citizens don’t trust government in America today. The advantage in this sad reality for me as a radio talk show host is that I am acutely aware of it and can continually offer real life solutions and hope to the audience.

Fodder or not, the real Christmas gift here for me is that the listeners continually remind me to be dedicated to our principles of efficient and limited government.

Now if only I could make each elected official be a radio talk show host for a week and we would have it all fixed!