Conservative Party vice chairman responds to criticism

Editor:

I am honored that the best so-called Republican attack dogs can come up with is a sour grapes response about some of our endorsed candidates supporting keeping the nursing home public. Some members of the Conservative Party support it, some don’t. I don’t.

This is a representative republic andthose candidates also support the bill of rights, lowering taxes, limiting government, defending the second amendment (the 4th for which our current Legislature has a very poor record of doing.)

Some have even voted against tax increases, others have cut taxes 9 percent in one year, showing it can be done if you’re serious. We are looking for fiscal conservatives, period. Something the Rinopubilcan party forgot about a long time ago.

We include other parties and give select candidates a chance, unlike the Rinopublican party that picks and chooses who will be the next best “yes man.”

My critique of the Legislature is long going and has nothing to do with the nursing home issue. I’m sitting here laughing as I write this, getting a lesson on conservatism from attack dogs that defend the Tax and Blame Legislature.

The very Legislature that has NOT produced a budget that hasn’t raised taxes in the 10 years I have gone there. The tax and blame county Legislature that slipped in an added amendment last year giving the county CEO a 5-year contract extension when he has never put together a budget that doesn’t raise taxes in his entire career.

Has the Legislature made some cuts? Yes. Because it has been forced to, not because it chose to. Remember this is the same group that grew and grew government when times were good. Very conservative of them wasn’t it? Very Republican?

I attend allthe county meetings with the Conservative Party chairman. We speak on spending and hiring cuts, tougher negotiations, protecting privacy, things going on in the national scope that effect us locally, slowing down the scope and power of Homeland Security, and these guys give us nothing. They grow and expand government at every meeting. Read the county minutes at the website. It’s all on record.

They are more in tuned with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi than Ted Cruz or Rand Paul. Republicans? If I was head of the Republican Party in OC, I would be so humiliated from all the tax raisers and regulators that continue to get endorsements in this county.

Whenever OC sets a record, it’s for the highest taxes, unemployment, poverty and jobs leaving. Who keeps endorsing these people? There is the problem that needs fixing.They have cheapened the brand to a laughingstock.

Republican? Chairman Callard cuts me off almost every time I speak. Pounding his gavel, pointing at his watch or even threatening to have me removed by the sheriff if my regresses strike too closely to a nerve. He changes the rules as he goes along. The first amendment only applies to those who give praise or say what the Legislature wants to hear.

It’s healthy that some of you are nervous that “your” power grab and stranglehold on this county may soon becoming to an end now that you finally have some competition in the arena of political ideas.

Some very uninformed voters are questioning the ideology ofthe Conservative Party when these Republicans don’t live up to anything they are supposed stand for: limited government, low taxes, respect for the constitution (selective), private property rights, privacy, and trust in the citizen over government.

The Conservative Party consists of former Republicans that are ashamed of what has become of that party and you better get used to us because we aren’t going away. You don’t have a monopoly anymore.

Paul Lauricella Jr.
Lyndonville
Orleans County Conservative Party Vice Chairman