Virgil Goode
Former U.S. Congressman Virgil Goode, the speaker at the Lancaster County Constitution Party's quarterly Saturday breakfast meeting, did not say whether he will seek the party's presidential nomination, which a number of Constitution Party members are urging him to do.
But Goode, who served in Virginia's 5th District, from 1997 to 2009, sounded like a candidate as he talked about the issues that will be front and center in the 2012 election: debt, immigration, trade, taxes, term limits and cutting the size of government.
And as far as Goode sees it, the Democrats are bad on these issues, but the Republicans aren't much better.
"The Constitution Party is not afraid to make the tough choices," he told the approximately 30 people attending the meeting at the Hershey Farm Restaurant near Strasburg.
And that means huge cuts in government programs.
"We've been on a hog-wild spending spree in Washington, particularly in the last two years. We need to be willing to cut," he said. "And to achieve that, you've got to make people mad."
And that, Goode said, is something the Republicans don't want to do any more than the Democrats.
"This supercommittee [of six Democrats and six Republicans from both the House and Senate] doesn't know how to cut a trillion and a half dollars," Goode said. "That's just a drop in the bucket."
He called for cutting the Department of Education by $100 billion and eliminating No Child Left Behind.
"The federal government shouldn't be in the business of local and state education," Goode said.
He also declared that cuts in foreign aid and defense were necessary.
"We've got 40,000 troops in Japan. Why are we paying for that? We can't be all over the world," he said.
Goode called for an end to funding for public broadcasting, a reduction in food stamps, and cutting bureaucratic earmarks.
He questioned the value of free trade agreements, which, he said, often encourage businesses to move overseas.
He also pointed to immigration, both legal and illegal, as a serious problem and noted that "Democrats want more immigrants to come in because they hope they'll vote for them, and Republicans are afraid they won't be politically correct if they talk about it, so they've backed off."
"But the Constitution Party has not backed off," he said.
"We need to totally stop illegal immigration and put a moratorium on legal immigration," Goode said. "That would greatly improve our employment situation. Jobs should go to American citizens, not immigrants."
That last sentence brought applause from the audience.
Goode believes that the answer to many problems is term limits.
"I served for six terms and that was really too long," he said. (Goode ran for re-election as a Republican in 2008, but lost to Democrat Tom Perriello.) "You are constantly fundraising. Term limits would take the focus off the next election and [put it] on what is good for the country."
And what about running for president in 2012? In May, the Constitution Party National Committee (chaired by Lancaster's Jim Clymer) unanimously passed a resolution urging Goode to seek the nomination.
Will he?
"I'll let people know next year, by January or February," he said. "We've got sure disaster with Obama, and it's only prolonged a little with the Republicans. But tough choices have to be made. The Constitution Party offers the best choice out there."
