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This column reflects the opinion of the writer. Learn about the differences between a news story and an opinion column.

Where’s the good ol’ GOP?

What’s happened to the Republican Party we used to know?

Being fiscally conservative was a GOP hallmark. Today they passed a spending bill that will add trillions to our federal deficit.

(The last president left us with a growing economy, deficits under control and 15 million fewer Americans without health insurance.) As Max Boot, a foreign policy adviser to John McCain in 2008 and to Mitt Romney in 2012, reminded Republicans recently, “You used to belong to a conservative party with a white-national fringe. Now it’s a white nationalist party with a conservative fringe. ” Another GOP moderate, Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain’s 2008 campaign, has also resigned from the party. “I became a member of the Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and stand for the dignity of human life,” Schmidt wrote. “Today, I renounce my membership. It is fully the party of Trump.”

And speaking of immigration policy, Boot says, “I’ve thrown up my hands in despair at the debased state of the GOP. I don’t want to be identified with the party of child-snatchers.”

James Ramsey

Sandpoint

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