Last night, I attended the Venango County Republican Party Committee meeting, along with six other candidates. I have to tell you, it felt great to be a little closer to home and let the other fellows do the driving this time.

It was also nice to finally meet Martha Breene face to face after a number of phone conversations and e-mail exchanges. Martha is the tireless Chair of the Venango County Republican Party. You could tell from the energy and from the depth of questions that were asked of the candidates that she does a wonderful job in her position.

All of the candidates had an opportunity to speak and then to address questions. As I listened to the other candidates, I felt that our approach to this election was distinct.

Each of the other candidates had a very similar take on the role of our next Congressman. Each one promised to make better use of the system in order to deliver more for the District. Interestingly, what it meant to “deliver” or “meet the needs” of the people varied, and seemed to parallel each candidate’s own particular field. There was only one voice calling out to completely change the system.

One candidate put it very starkly. Responding to my call for an immediate one-year moratorium on all earmarks, he said that it just wasn’t going to happen, and earmarks are a good way of bringing money back into the district. And there it was. The contrast could not have been clearer.

We have to face the sober reality – our system is broken. We are $9,300,000,000,000 in debt. President Bush is the first President to propose a $2 trillion budget… and the first President to propose a $3 trillion budget (of which $400 billion is deficit spending). Our economy is convulsing and we have less and less flexibility to handle such economic disturbances. And one of the greatest reasons for this is pork-barrel government spending and earmarking.

Yesterday, the “check engine” light came on in my car. I immediately went to the garage. This morning they told me it was a minor problem, but it would have become much worse if I had simply continued to drive despite the warning.

The “check engine” light of our economy has clearly come on. Do we really want to just keep driving?