The State, November 11, 2006
By: Mike Campbell

Tuesday's political tsunami hit the Republican Party all across America. After 12 years in leadership, the balance of power shifted abruptly, despite the fact that, just two years ago, large majorities were bestowed on the GOP in both houses of Congress and George W. Bush was given four more years as our commander-in-chief.

Conservatives now ask, "What happened?" What happened to the party of Ronald Reagan? What happened to less spending and limited government? What happened to the majority we fought so hard to get?

Many Republicans in Washington simply fell into the same traps of power and politics that plagued Democrats before them. The words of Lord Acton best describe this situation: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

President Reagan once said, "Government is the people's business and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid." As any responsible shareholder should do, we taxpayers need to closely monitor if we are getting the greatest return on our investment and hold management (in this case, government officials) accountable when we are not. A major portion of that monitoring should be comparing spending to profitability. In other words, is more money going out than coming in?