Boehner chosen as new Majority Leader

Boehner chosen as new Majority Leader

The Republicans seem to prefer the chaff over the wheat.

Roger Williams allowed Baptists, yes. They were probably allowed outside of New England as well. I can't find the reference to the Catholic head tax in Virginia, but I did find on the internet a reference to a 1643 law in Virginia, that required Catholic prients landing on Virginia shores to be deported with five days. That was in the heat of the Cromwell revolution, so maybe the head tax was around then too. I don't know.

Massachussets lost its charter in 1684, and New Enland was appended to New York in 1688 under the James II regime. James was bounced later that year, and subject to charter revisions, the union with New York was reversed shortly thereafter.

It seems to me that his answers are misleading, trying to portray his stance in one light without actually making any substantial positions or commitments. For example, in the article you posted Representative Bohener is asked:

“Why did you vote against the recent border security bill, H.R. 4437? Do you support amnesty for illegal immigrants?”

"H.R. 4437 has a number of strong provisions aimed at stemming the tide of illegal immigration, all of which I support.

I opposed one section of the bill that places a massive unfunded mandate on small businesses... Nor do I believe it is right to turn small business owners into felons for failing to do the federal government’s job of protecting the borders. Had it not been for this one section, I would have supported the bill."

Now perhaps it is just me, but the above statement suggests that he is encouraging businesses to hire illegal aliens. He doesn't support holding american business owners to account if they break the law, nor does he seem to want to require the verification of their residency status when they apply for jobs.

Another point which I found to be misleading was his answer to fiscal responsibility. Here is the question he is asked and the response:

“Couldn't our elected officials at least TRY to do some budget trimming before the federal government is bankrupt?”

The Deficit Reduction Act that is awaiting a final vote will save $40 billion over the next five years by rooting out waste in our biggest programs. But we’re going to have to do a lot more if we want to get control of the budget."

Now thats a statement should raise a few eyebrows. Forty billion dollars is only a drop in the federal budget's proverbial bucket. Thats like using a band-aid when you need a tourniquet. We are still hundreds of billions of dollars in the red. The major challenge will be stemming non discretionary spending which is primarily composed of entitlement spending that is required by law and continues to grow exponentially. Just saying I'm going to cut $40 billion dollars from "programs" is a silly statement. Politicians always claim that they are going to cut waste from the budget, after all who wants the government to waste money? The real question is how do they cut waste from the budget? It is not as if there is an item in the budget marked "wasteful spending." So outside of this 40 billion dollar cut just how does Boehner intend to cut the budget? Why lets see what he has to say:

"For starters, I’ve proposed enacting a ban on unauthorized earmarks – better known as pork projects - that are often slipped onto “must-pass” spending bills in the middle of the night. I’ve also proposed fixing the Congressional Budget Act, which right now discourages any sense of fiscal responsibility. And as always, I remain committed to reforming our biggest entitlement programs - Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid – to ensure that they’re more than just a big bill for our children and grandchildren."

Thats right. His answer to the budget crisis is stopping "unauthorized earmarks". Thats kind of a funny statement because first of all the use of the word "unauthorized" implies that there are authorized earmarks that can be made. Which prompts me to ask, what earmarks aren't authorized? It is already against the House Rules to give earmarks. The Rules Committee however, always suspends the rule so if any representative moves to call for a point of order owing to an earmark, the Rules Committee instead of ruling the earmark out of order, it rules the representative's motion against the earmark of order. In anycase it is important to realize that no earmark can pass the House of Representatives without being authorized. Therefore his promise to cut unauthorized earmarks, is really is no promise at all because there are no "unauthorized" earmarks to cut.

This is at least my interpretation of the comments that Boehner made. If you have any insight on the issues then I would be interested to hear your comments. I however, am leery about Boehner's position on many important issues, but I hope that I'm wrong about that and he turns out to be a great Majority leader.