Posted on 05/04/2008 9:52:43 PM PDT by The_Republican
Operating outside public view, the House Democratic majority is taking extraordinary steps to maintain spending as usual while awaiting a Democrat as president. Remarkably, the supine House Republican minority hardly resists and even collaborates with its supposed adversaries.
There has been little or no public Republican protest over seizure of the appropriating process by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her clique. For the second straight year, no appropriations bill other than defense is scheduled for passage. Instead, spending details are crafted in the Speaker's Office, negating President George W. Bush's veto strategy. In a little-noticed maneuver April 23, Pelosi won passage of a bill preventing Medicaid billions from being saved through Bush administration regulations. Despite the GOP leadership's nominal opposition, House Republicans voted for higher spending by two to one.
Adding in Pelosi's unprecedented tactics in blocking the Colombian Free Trade Agreement, she has in 16 months established herself as one of the most powerful speakers ever. The stunning aspect of Czar Nancy's rule is the degree of Republican acquiescence. Neither losing their House majority in 2006 after 12 years nor facing more serious losses in 2008 has toughened the Republicans.
Republicans have just caught on that Pelosi plans for the second straight year to substitute a continuing resolution for individual appropriations bills. Continuing resolutions in the past consisted of a single sentence keeping spending at the previous year's level, but these documents have become complicated descriptions of spending. At year's end, the Democrats devise an omnibus bill wrapping up all domestic spending -- hamstringing the lame-duck Republican president's resolve to veto generous Democratic appropriations bills, one by one.
Less expansive but more audacious is what Democrats are doing to Bush administration Medicaid rules, which would impose fiscal integrity on states tapping into the federal funds for that runaway program.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
... and the ongoing McCainization of the Republican party proceeds apace.
There's no wound nearly so tragic (or fatal) as a self-inflicted one.
Maybe it’s time for a new conservative party, if the GOP doesn’t want to do the job. I don’t want to return to the 1970’s “go along to get along, please throw us a bone, Democrats” supine GOP.
Too late, we already got it. We've lost 2 House seats since the '06 election, picked up zero of theirs, and we may lose a 3rd next week in MS. This party isn't doing what is necessary to reclaim a majority, nor does it seem interested in doing so. Even the rodents didn't act this complacent in 1996 after they lost the majority.
Well .. the blue-blood repubs have taken over the party and they don’t give a rat’s rear-end what we think.
Guess they don’t need my money or my vote either!
Maybe when we get hit again and it’s nuclear and it devastates America and kills 10’s of thousands of people .. I really do wonder if they will even pay attention then.
I think I’m going to be sick ......
For how many decades have you covered DC, Bob?
If that nuke hits Congress it won’t be much of a loss.
“leader” Boehner is a loser like lovable Bob Michal.
“Remarkably, the supine House Republican minority hardly resists and even collaborates with its supposed adversaries.”
Hardly remarkable. They are just acting like the kind of capons who lost the Congress initially.
We need a third political party to become the Second political party by putting a final kabosh to these eunuchs.
Its TIME!!!
This post (<-click), from a tax-related thread, provides more details as to how constitutionally unauthorized federal spending got started when constitutional flunky FDR established his New Deal programs.
In fact, since the OP mentioned Pelosi in conjunction with Medicaid, note that when Jefferson talked about the Founder's division of federal and state powers, he mentioned that the Founders had trusted the states, not the federal government, with the care of the people.
"Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our external and mutual relations; to each State, severally, the care of our persons, (emphasized by Amendment10) our property, our reputation and religious freedom." --Thomas Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801. ME 10:262 http://tinyurl.com/onx4jAlso, Speaker Pelosi is also arguably in contempt of Sec. 3 of the 14th A. for the following reason. Just as Jane Fonda went to North Vietnam to embarrass American officials, Pelosi made a trip to Syria in '07 to embarrass President Bush. The problem with Pelosi's trip, however, is that given that she had taken an oath to defend the Constitution, she arguably crossed the line established by Sec. 3 by giving comfort to the USA's enemies. Indeed, I would argue that because of Sec. 3, Pelosi is no longer legally a congressperson, let alone Speaker of the HoR.
The people need to reconnect with the Founder's requirement for constitutionally enumerated federal powers, particularly those powers which reasonably justify federal spending. The people then need to wise up to the major problem that, thanks to constitutional flunkys like Nancy Pelosi, the federal government is not operating within the restraints of the federal Constitution as the Founders had intended. The bottom line is that the people need to get in the faces of "leaders" like Pelosi and the Democrats and Republicans who support her shenanigans, demanding that they start upholding their oaths to defend the Constitution by stopping unauthorized federal spending programs and appropriately reducing federal taxes - or get out of DC.
Bush:
thanks a lot for throwing Newt’s majority away
I guess the Republicans haven’t learned the lesson of 2006.
They must want a repeat of 1956-1994.
Bush isn’t to blame exclusively. The Congress holding the purse strings should’ve trimmed back the spending, too.
useless idiots, nearly the entire lot
Republicans give in to everything. They have become the Wimp Party.
Republicans give in to everything. They have become the Wimp Party.
Republicans give in to everything. They have become the Wimp Party.
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