Monday, May 5, 2008

House GOP surrenders to Pelosi and the liberals

With barely a whimper, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are putting in with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the liberal Democrats, backing big spending beyond the veto of the President and depriving the party of a major campaign issue in this fall's congressional and presidential elections.

A continuing resolution, keeping spending at current levels, used to be a one sentence document, passed when Congress was unable to agree or get around to acting on a new spending bill. Pelosi and her liberal cohorts have bent this tradition all out of shape, with pages of earmarks and amendments while still calling it a "continuing resolution," which the president can't veto.

Just a small minority of conservatives within the GOP House minority have objected to this procedure and voted against it. A large majority of the GOP caucus has joined with unanimous Democratic votes to create overwhelming passage of big spending bills, without formally passing individual appropriation bills that could be vetoed individually by the President.

Evidently Republicans still haven't figured out why they lost the House after 12 years of control, and continue to pad their political resumes with earmarked projects for their districts, rather than look at the greater national good. This is what got them in trouble in the first place, and continues to cause the GOP base to be restive at best, and in open rebellion at worst.

Putting political expediency ahead of basic principle deprives John McCain and GOP congressional candidates across the country of a potent campaign issue. Putting in with standard Democratic tax-and-spend orthodoxy, rather than standing up for spending and tax cuts, blurs the lines between candidates and causes voters to say "If its a choice between two big spenders, why not vote for the authentic. real thing--a Democrat?"

No comments: