Murray Sabrin, 2018 Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate in New Jersey
Star-Ledger affiliate NJ.com reported on Jan. 25 that author and Ramapo College finance professor Murray Sabrin has declared he will run for U.S. Senate, and credited him as the first candidate to announce a 2018 challenge to Sen. Robert “Bob” Menendez (D–NJ), who was first appointed to the seat in 2006.
Sabrin has wasted no time in promoting his campaign. On Jan. 30, NorthJersey.com published an op-ed he wrote in which he asserts the need to restore our representative republic form of government — what he terms “the promise of America” — following decades of its erosion by the two dominant parties, ever since the election of the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln.
From the NJ.com article, “Menendez gets his first challenger in Senate race: An ‘out of the box’ Libertarian,” by Jonathan D. Salant:
Ramapo College finance professor Murray Sabrin said he would seek the Libertarian Party nomination for U.S. Senate, becoming the first announced challenger to U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez.
“If I am successful at the convention, we will have the most out-of-the-box U.S. Senate campaign in the history of New Jersey and possibly U.S. history,” Sabrin said in announcing his candidacy.
“I have tested my strategy with many people across the political spectrum and they were, to a person, enthusiastically supportive, which included a signature proposal that would resonate, again, with individuals no matter their party affiliation,” Sabrin said.
Sabrin is no stranger to New Jersey campaigns.
He ran for the U.S. Senate as a Republican three times in 2000, 2008, and 2014, failing to land his party’s nomination all three times.
He was the Libertarian Party gubernatorial nominee in 1997, when he became the first third-party candidate who raised enough money to qualify for matching funds and a spot in televised debates.
Menendez faces a retrial on charges that he intervened with federal agencies on behalf of a friend and campaign donor.
From Sabrin’s op-ed at NorthJersey.com (part of the USA Today network), “The political establishment’s betrayal of the Republic,” published on Jan. 30:
The promise of America was to create a Republic in which the people would live as free and independent citizens in a compact of states — “laboratories of democracy” — with the federal government having a few responsibilities and limited role in the lives of Americans.
But it was not meant to be. America has been transformed into a one-party system with two wings, Democrats and Republicans, who vie for political power but have the same agenda: corporate welfare for their contributors, and enough welfare dollars to keep the masses in check.
When Lincoln was elected, the national debt was virtually zero; there was no federal income tax, and a comprehensive welfare state was not on the agenda of any major political candidate. Since then, both political parties have increased the national debt to $20 trillion. The federal income tax has morphed from a minor irritant to the incomprehensible tax code that is more than 74,000 pages long.
And the once mighty U.S. dollar, because it was as “good as gold,” has lost more than 95 percent of its purchasing power since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913.
After five decades of “trickle-down welfarism,” more than half of the American people are receiving some form of financial assistance. Clearly, this is unsustainable, as the unfunded liabilities of the welfare state are estimated to be as high as $200 trillion.
Instead of peaceful relations with the rest of the world’s nation states, our belligerent bipartisan foreign policy has given us undeclared wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and stationing of troops and military personnel in 150 countries housed in 800 bases. America’s foreign interventions since the end of World War II have cost (in 2008 dollars) several trillion dollars.
Republicans pay lip service to limited government and the free market while Democrats pay lip service to civil liberties and a peaceful foreign policy and have betrayed the American people by creating the welfare-warfare state. It is time to restore the Republic – where corporate welfare is abolished, financial independence is embraced, civil liberties are protected, and the global empire is replaced with a peaceful foreign policy.
The New Jersey Libertarian Party 2018 convention will be held on March 24 at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. For details, visit: NJLP.org/convention
Read Murray Sabrin’s op-ed, “The political establishment’s betrayal of the Republic.”
Learn more at Sabrin’s website: MurraySabrin.com
