Over the next couple of years, Barack
Obama wants to raise the national debt to $18.9 trillion or so.
John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and the
congressional Republicans want to raise the national debt to $18.4 trillion or
so.
The present leadership of the
Republican Party has gone from making the case that government is the problem
and the American people are the solution to making the case that Democratic
controlled government is the problem and Republican controlled government is
the solution.
By giving up on making the case that
government is the problem and pivoting to “Democrats are the problem,” the
Republican Party has failed the American people. Historically, when parties
lost, their leadership went and hid for an appropriate amount of time under a
rock after an acceptance of blame and a resignation.
The present Republican leaders in
Washington, instead of hiding under a rock, have taken to standing on the rock
and demanding conservatives self flagellate. Neither John Boehner nor Mitch
McConnell are visionaries. They are survivors. They survive by recognizing the
biggest threat to them and trying to befriend it or neutralize it.
Right now, both see conservatives as
their biggest threat, not Barack Obama. Why? Because while Barack Obama
maintains the White House, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell maintain their
positions of power. They exist for power, not for vision. The visions they
articulate are routinely backpedaled. Remember the pledge to nowhere the House
Republicans concocted in 2010 as a second coming of the Contract With America?
Within two months of returning to the majority they’d already ditched their
pledge faster than a frat boy fleeing a one night stand. Only conservatives
wish to hold them accountable for their breach of trust, thus conservatives are
the threat.
The very same
Republican leadership who paved the way for the rise of the Democrats in 2006
through moral opaqueness on the role of government in the lives of Americans now seek to shut up and shut out the conservatives who continue to loudly point out that the size and scope of
the federal leviathan has grown too unwieldy. More troubling, with the removal
of the several of the critics within the party from key committees and a clear
message that loud voices of conservatism will not get plumb committee
assignments, the incoming freshman class and even the current conservative
leaders in the House of Representatives have rolled over.
Let us not kid ourselves. The
Republicans intend to strike a last minute deal to cave. They will. They are
going blind in the bathroom over the idea of bifurcating tax cuts so Barack
Obama can veto the tax cut for high income earners and let the rest slide
through. It is, as usual, a too clever by half compromise from the GOP, which
has spent more time out negotiating itself to the left than negotiating with
the Democrats.
The compromise is no longer the issue.
It will happen.
The issue is that the
Republican leaders who will be in charge in January are the Republican leaders
who were directly complicit in the construction of the fiscal cliff and were
directly complicit in getting us already to $16 trillion in national debt.
Democrats are not to blame; both parties in Washington are.
Obsequious praise for small government
does the Republicans no good when they too are in favor of big government in
their actions. And having two leaders as the face of the party who have both
been in Washington since 1986 does no good restoring credibility when these
multi-decade residents of the swamp wink and smile that they really do think
Washington is the problem.
Is it any wonder the American people
have come to the conclusion that government isn’t so bad when the party of
small government keeps expanding it too? The leaders of the party are the
message, not the words. And the message does not resonate because they do not
practice what they preach.
Until the Republicans change their
message, they will keep losing. Changing the message means changing the men.
Will 16 Republicans in the House be brave enough to stand up and say the party
needs a new Speaker of the House?
This is not about the compromise. This
is not about the fiscal cliff. This is not even about removing Amash,
Huelskamp, Schweikert, and Jones. This is about beginning again anew — a
process that cannot happen when the faces of the Republican leadership have
been in Washington since 1986 expanding government while preaching the need for
limiting it.
Source: Red State, by Erick
Erickson (Diary) | December
13th, 2012 at 04:30 AM |
Comments:
How hard is it to start a new party ?
Can we register as Conservatives to be able to count our numbers ? Can we get the States to protect us from the
Federal ? Can we protect ourselves from
our government by filing lawsuits ? All
of these things are worth trying. Otherwise, we will never extract ourselves
from the “one party system” we have endured for the last 100 years. We don’t need to invent anything new. We just
need to push all levels of government to restore the U.S. Constitution and
Amendments, as written. We do need
candidates who will fight to reduce the size, scope and expense of our current
government. Reelecting Obama was not a
good start to accomplishing this. We
need relentless judicial action to remove him from office.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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