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The Watauga Democrat
By Spencer Main, Guest Columnist

Responsible government is about making the tough choices. In electing our representatives to protect our interests in Washington or Raleigh, we know that not every decision they will make will be easy. Much like a business, our representatives can’t say ‘yes’ to every proposal or request for money they receive. To do so would be an abandoning of their responsibility to lead and to act in our best interests.

Recent columns in the Watauga Democrat have been filled with partisan crowing over Representative Foxx’s vote against $51.8 billion dollars in federal money following Hurricane Katrina. These pundits have attempted to portray our representative as, in the words of Democratic State Party Chairman Jerry Meek as a “callous, heartless vote.”

Normally, I do not believe it appropriate to respond to the attacks presented in opinion columns. However, in this case, it is necessary to set the record straight.

What the pundits haven’t told you is that the Congress had already approved $10.5 billion dollars in federal aid for those suffering from the hurricanes effects. Further, these pundits don’t want to address the major concern of Representative Foxx: Where and how were these funds going to be spent? The feel-good response of many politicians to throw money at a problem is not the answer. To put this amount in perspective, $51.8 billion dollars is roughly equivalent to the entire budget for the State of North Carolina for a year. Another way to look at this figure is to view it with all the zeros: $51,800,000,000.00.

Representatives are trusted to make decisions on how to spend our money. Millions of our fellow Americans suffer from personal tragedy each year. People get sick, have car accidents, or suffer loss from a house fire. When a hurricane strikes North Carolina, do we look to the federal government to replace everything which is damaged? Does the federal government rush to pass huge spending bills for these people? Should it? What accountability should we expect of our tax dollars?

Colonel Davy Crockett, famous for his defense of the Alamo, once served in the United States House of Representatives. During this tenure as a representative, a bill was introduced to pay $20,000 to the widow of a distinguished naval officer. As I cannot improve upon the words of this great frontiersman, the following is his speech to the House of Representative:

“Mr. Speaker, I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money.

Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the Government was in arrears to him.

This Government can owe no debts but for services rendered, and at a stipulated price. If it is a debt, how much is it? Has it been audited, and the amount due ascertained?

If it is a debt, this is not the place to present it for payment, or to have its merits examined. If it is a debt, we owe more than we can ever hope to pay, for we owe the widow of every soldier who fought in the war of 1812 precisely the same amount. There is a woman in my neighborhood, the widow of as gallant a man as ever shouldered a musket. He fell in battle. She is as good in every respect as this lady, and is as poor. She is earning her daily bread by her daily labor, and if I were to introduce a bill to appropriate five or ten thousand dollars for her benefit, I should be laughed at, and my bill would not get five votes in this House. There are thousands of widows in the country just such as the one I have spoken of; but we never hear of any of these large debts to them.

Sir, this is no debt. The Government did not owe it to the deceased when he was alive; it could not contract it after he died.

I do not wish to be rude, but I must be plain. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”

Tragedy always invokes the need of people to respond. The real resources which have helped ease this tragedy are not the $62.3 billion which have been spent by the federal government. The real heroes are the men and woman of the Southern Baptist Association’s Disaster Relief Team, the Red Cross, Carolinas Medical Center’s mobile trauma unit, The Salvation Army, and countless other relief teams and organizations who have helped the people rebuild.

We need a representative who is willing to make the tough choices. We need a representative who is willing to stand up for the right thing to do, even when it is not the easy thing to do. I am proud that Virginia Foxx is our representative.

Spencer Mains is the chairman of the Watauga County Republican Party.