Boortz exhorts, knocks GOP at Lincoln dinner
Posted on Sunday, February 24, 2008
ROGERS - At a fundraising Lincoln Day dinner on Friday night, Benton County Republicans heard radio talk show host Neal Boortz criticize the party. The GOP has done a poor job of communicating with voters, Boortz said.
Boortz, a member of the Libertarian Party, said he differs with the Libertarian Party on the Iraq war.
He believed George W. Bush will be well regarded by history because of his resolve to protect America and battle Islamic terrorists, Boortz said to loud applause.
In any case, he begged the group's indulgence to find fault with the Republican Party. The GOP is in the doldrums in part because by many measures government has grown larger during Bush's period in office. For instance, there are twice as many lobbyists in Washington, D. C. as there were eight years ago, he said.
The GOP was once recognized as a lower-tax and smaller-government party, but has drifted off message, he said. "If the Republican Party's going to have a resurgence it's going to have to get back on message," he said.
He would recommended forming a commission to study ways to return power to the local level, where 95 percent of political power was placed by America's founders, Boortz said. Now, some 95 percent of power comes from Washington, D. C., with predictably bad results, he said.
Also, he'd recommend the party endorse a tax plan endorsed by himself, by presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and others. The so-called Fair Tax plan would have consumers fund government through purchases of new products and permit the income tax and many other forms of tax to be ended, Boortz said.
He teased a West Coast talk show host who said he didn't agree with the Fair Tax plan because he wanted to keep the current mortgage interest rate deduction. In fact, under the plan, there would be no such tax to pay and thus no need for the deduction, Boortz said.
Also at the event, State Senators Dave Bisbee of Rogers and Kim Hendren of Gravette read a resolution they offered last year in the Arkansas Senate. It honored the late Terry Crabtree, a long-time judge who died in 2007.
Crabtree, 55, a former Benton County Circuit Judge, was about to start a second term as an elected judge on the Arkansas Court of Appeals when he died Jan. 6, 2007, at his Bentonville home. Crabtree's family accepted a copy of the resolution.
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