The budget is NOT value-neutral

Last night, I was watching CNN cover a relatively minor story about how Alaska Tea Party Senatorial candidate Joe Miller's private security guards had a newspaper reporter handcuffed and detained because the reporter was doggedly questioning Miller about an ethics violation he is alleged to have committed while he was employed by city government.  (Subsequent questioning by CNN elicited Miller's admission that he did use city equipment for political purposes, but only "on my lunch hour.")  A panel of blatantly right-leaning political pundits then agreed that the Miller ethics issue was irrelevant, because the only issues that matter to midterm voters are the economy, jobs and the Federal deficit.
Here's a news flash: grave concerns about the economy and the deficit do not make candidates' ethics and values irrelevant.   Economics and budgets are not value-neutral.  These candidates have vowed to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and many have declared their commitment to eliminate capital gains and estate taxes.  They have also comitted to balancing the Federal budget.  Lower tax revenues mean less money to spend.  So it's important to know what these deficit-hawks' and budget slashers' ethics and values are, because those ethics and values will determine what they will slash and what they will fund.
In govermnent, the power to withhold funding, like the power to tax, is the power to destroy.  If the Tea Party candidates believe there is no such thing as anthropogenic global warming, they will not fund green or alternative energy development.  Nor will they fund the EPA.  If they believe that Amendments 13-15 should be repealed, they will not fund the Justice Department's civil rights programs.  If they believe that education is a purely local concern, they will not fund the Department of Education.  If they truly believe in the free-market individualism that they proclaim, they will not hesitate to cut early childhood education programs, student loans, unemployment benefits, job training programs, Medicaid, and any other social service programs they consider expendable.  Most of them already have vowed to repeal - or withhold funding of - health care reform legislation.  And that's just the beginning. . .
So don't buy the conventional wisdom that the only thing that matters is the economy.  The economy and the Federal budget reflect the social and moral values and commitments of the people who control them.  And you will have to live with that.  So, before you vote, ask yourself: are this candidate's values consistent with mine?