SARAH PALIN’S STINGING CRITIQUE OF WASHINGTON’S POLICIES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/5/palin-america-out-step-reagans-values/
By Michael R. Blood
SANTABARBARA, Calif. (AP) — America is on a “road to ruin” because of misguided policies in Washington and needs to get back in step with the values of Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin said at an event honoring the former president’s legacy.
Former Republican vice Presidential candidate and Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin receives a standing ovation as she arrives at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, Friday Feb. 4, 2011. Palin was the headline speaker for the Ronald Reagan Centennial celebration opening reception hosted by the Young Americans Foundation. (AP Photo/Spencer Weiner)
By Michael R. Blood
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Associated Press
6:54 a.m., Saturday, February 5, 2011
The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee delivered a stinging critique of Washington during her speech Friday, part of the national celebration marking the centennial of Reagan’s birth on Feb. 6.
Revisiting themes familiar from her 2008 campaign, she said the nation was being shackled by high debt and taxes, dense government regulation and rising spending, often for programs that don’t work. She said a rush toward green energy was overlooking the nation’s oil and natural gas reserves, a choice that will cost jobs and drive up pump prices.
She blamed Washington leaders — an apparent reference to the Obama administration — for doing “everything in their power to stymie responsible domestic drilling.”
“This is dangerous. This is insane,” she said. “This is not the road to national greatness, it is the road to ruin.”
She alluded to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address last month, saying it amounted to a statement that “the era of big government is here to stay.”
Palin was asked to talk about Reagan’s 1964 speech, “A Time for Choosing,” which he gave on behalf of then-Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. In it, he talks at length about the dangers of high taxes and encroaching big government, as well as the necessity of strong national security.
She said the stark choices the nation faces are not unlike those Reagan talked of in the 1960s, only the economy of today is worse, from home foreclosures to high unemployment.
She said Reagan saw the danger of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs, and “he refused to sit down and be silent as our liberties were eroded by an out of control, centralized government that overtaxed and overreached in utter disregard of constitutional limits.”
“We could choose one direction or the other, socialism or freedom and free markets,” Palin said.
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