Jeff Flake has made a career out of getting under the skin of established political interests. Many of those interests have been from his own party (more on that later). But, Flake has also crossed swords with some of Arizona’s biggest business leaders. (Funny, but I thought that all Republicans were in the pockets of big business).

From Dennis Prager, one of KVOI’s stalwarts of conservative talk:

Jeff Flake’s Non-Supporters
Why don’t people who have thrived under free enterprise support its champions?

Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board reported Friday that the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Arizona, Congressman Jeff Flake, has little support among some powerful big businessmen in Arizona:

In his razor-tight race for Arizona’s open Senate seat, Republican nominee Jeff Flake — a six-term U.S. congressman — recently met behind closed doors with about a dozen leading businessmen in the state, including two powerful and respected CEOs: real-estate developer Mike Ingram and former Phoenix Suns owner Jerry Colangelo.

Both businessmen supported Mr. Flake’s opponent in the Republican primary (Mr. Flake won by 40 points), and both are pushing for federal financing of a road project that would stretch from Phoenix to Las Vegas. In the western part of the state, the 300-mile highway would bisect their 34,000-acre Douglas Ranch, where they have plans to develop a luxury hotel and upscale homes. A person who attended the meeting recalls that the two asked Mr. Flake: “We need to know. Are you going to be an Arizona senator or a U.S. senator?”

I’m told that Mr. Flake responded by saying that with the country facing a $16 trillion debt, dealing with that problem was his priority.

Good answer; wrong audience. The two CEOs still haven’t endorsed Mr. Flake. In an interview, Mr. Ingram confirmed the meeting and explained that the business executives in the room “worry that Mr. Flake may not support business compared to [Democrat Rich] Carmona.”

If, by “support business,” you mean “get federal money,” yes, Jeff Flake will probably oppose that. Why? That money comes from US, and we’ve been living on deficit spending for way too long. $16 trillion in debt is beaucoup dollar! Who’s going to pay that debt? (Turn now and look at the pictures of your children and grandchildren).

Jeff Flake has made a career of telling Washington, and those connected to its teats, that the federal government needs to spend less. He’s irritated quite a few people along the way. From Dan Nowicki of the Arizona Republic:

Rep. Jeff Flake may be the closest thing to an outsider inside Congress.

In his nearly 12 years there, Flake, R-Ariz., has earned the ire of powerful Capitol Hill lawmakers by crusading against earmarks and is credited as the driving force behind the current moratorium on the practice. In 2006, Flake led the charge to oust Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who was facing criminal prosecution, as House majority leader. Flake irritated President George W. Bush’s administration and some fellow Republicans by pushing to ease punitive U.S. travel and economic policies toward Cuba. He frequently has found himself a dissenting vote, sometimes the only one, against massive spending bills.

(Emphasis added).

I’ll stipulate that many of the things government spends its money on are good things. I’m sure you’ve all heard the ads criticizing Flake for not supporting many different types of federal benefits. (Or, more to the point, not supporting the spending levels that advocates WANT for those benefits.) I’ll concede that most, if not all, government benefit serve some useful purpose.

But, something’s gotta give. Do you really need to see any more charts that show how out-of-control federal spending really is? Or how bleak our fiscal future is, if we don’t change course? There aren’t enough super-rich people to tax more, so that we can pay for every benefit we’ve grown accustomed to receiving. (Even if those super rich pay a LOT more, instead of the “little more” that the Democrats claim to be asking for).

Jeff Flake is one of the few people who’s willing to say what needs to be said about federal spending—cut it !!!—and take the heat for it.

Lots of people don’t like to hear that the flow of federal money is going to slow down. The identities of some of those people might surprise you.

Now, look at your kids and grandkids and think of their futures. More to the point, think of what we’re taking FROM them, with ongoing deficit spending. Then vote.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2012 at 9:46 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.