Tom,

Unfortunately the so called fiscal conservatives that were elected over the last few years have largely accepted the concept of big government as inevitable. Their strategy seems to be that if we must have big government, let's make sure the money is going to our people instead of their people. This to my mind is no better than the Democrats controlling everything and smothering us with entitlements and welfare programs. A lot of voters really got played in the recent elections, thinking that they were voting for people who would actually live up to the idea of being conservative. The fact that the Republicans have the amount of control that they do and have squandered the opportunity to shrink our hideously bloated government is nothing short of appalling. We should not be kind in the next elections to the big government conservatives who have deceived us.

While I consider the current wave of conservatism in the US to be on the whole a positive thing, this spending spree mentality is very troubling. I think the conservative revolution needs to be immediately followed by the federalist revolution, where we once and for all get the country back on the course that the founding fathers intended. Even the gridlock of the '90's, where no party controlled both the legislature and the presidency, is preferable to our current situation from a spending perspective. While it may seem that nothing gets done in a divided government, it's a lot harder to pass the kind of spending bills that the Republicans currently are.

Let's hope the conservative voters of America wake up and smell the coffee before our current welfare system is replaced with a welfare system for Republican special interests.