Lane Tracy: Squandering, not conserving

I have been struggling to understand why the Republican Party calls itself conservative. To me, political conservatism means working to retain what has made us a great nation.

We should be conserving our bounteous natural resources and the skills of our population, making sure that they will still be available in the future.

Instead of conserving those resources, the Republican Party seems intent on squandering them. Fossil fuels are a wonderful reserve for the future, but Republicans are intent on burning them now when sustainable resources are increasingly available to us.

And the minds of our children are being sacrificed by cuts after cuts in the education system. America used to lead the world in education, but now it struggles to keep up with the middle of the pack.

Why is this not a primary concern of our “conservative” Republican politicians?

This story was originally published December 24, 2015 at 1:52 PM with the headline "Lane Tracy: Squandering, not conserving."