The "Do the Right Thing" Congress

The Washington Times ^ | January 3, 2011 | James S. Robbins

[Abakumov]

After the Democrats' shellacking at the polls in November, liberal pundits began evoking the Republican Congress that took power after a similar electoral defeat during President Harry Truman's first term. The "do nothing" Congress lasted just two years; in 1948, the Republicans ceded control of the Hill, and Truman was narrowly re-elected president. President Obama would like to replay this script and will take every opportunity to tag the incoming House Republican majority as obstructionist, irresponsible and out of touch. Yet in some respects, the 80th Congress set an example from which the 112th Congress could benefit.

Republicans took control of both houses of Congress in 1946, running on the still timely slogan "Had Enough?" Voters were fed up with continuing price controls and other restrictive programs that had been put in place during World War II but that liberal government functionaries were loath to give up. Then as now, Republicans promised smaller government, lower taxes and fewer regulations....

A "do nothing" Congress would be a relief after the 111th "spend everything" Congress with its most noteworthy achievement - creating more debt than the first 100 Congresses combined. But Republicans face a false choice between pursuing Mr. Obama's left-wing agenda and doing nothing. The new Congress was sent to Washington to fulfill a popular mandate for smaller government, lower taxes, decreased regulation and a general dismantling of the nanny-state excesses of the past two years. If its new members do the right thing and stick to that agenda, they can return to the voters in 2012 with a record worth defending. And they can be secure in the knowledge that Mr. Obama is no Harry Truman.

[Tzimisce]

I think the next Congress has a LOT of work cut out for them trying to repeal all of the crap from the last Congress. :(

[Louis Foxwell]

The dread fear in the pit of our collective stomach is that the leadership of this country is so deeply entrenched in its elitist control of every aspect of our culture that nothing will change.
RINO, establishment Republicans are busy setting traps for Tea Party members. None have been appointed chairpersons of standing committees. Leftists, as always are better on defense than Conservatives. They will work tirelessly to smear and defeat every effort to dismantle their brave new world.
The people have spoken loud and clear these past 2 years in absolute oppposition to every mandate passed by the Pelosi/Reid/Obama conspiracy. The people have been ignored again and again.
We have elected many fine Americans with the promise that they will turn this train wreck around. Will we see these newly minted Congress people corrupted and marginalized? That is our greatest fear.
The bright light that shone in the Tea Party this past year will not be dimmed regardless of the likely failure of government to reign itself in. We will learn that elections are not enough. We will find the means to starve the beast, tame it and cage it with the iron bars of our Constitution.

We may not yet have developed the tactics to win this war but it will be won. Government will not rule this nation. The people will rule themselves with justice, decency, respect and a hard fisted commitment to the rule of moral law.

[Bhoy]

interesting comment:

VldimirVal says:

1 hour, 56 minutes ago

Here is hoping that our people in the House don’t get fooled by the Democrat’s call for and champion compromise. It is just a tactic to get us to go along with their socialist wayss

The Democrats keep talking about compromise as if compromise is always a good thing under any and all circumstances. Compromise is like alcohol. A glass or two now and then is cool. Guzzling down cases of “two buck chuck” is disgusting. So a compromise would be only a half a case, that is enabling the drunk.

The road that the progressives in Congress , Obama, and his group of socialists/Marxist Czars and appointees are taking America down a road that is directly in the opposite direction the people want to travel. In the past two years we have witnessed a huge growth of government, unprecedented deficit spending, and loss of freedom, and liberty that has brought us too close to USSR style socialism. This trend was aided and abetted by an elite group of career politicians who are totally out of touch with the reality of life of the American people. They have totally discarded our Constitution and the reason why this land divorced itself from a top down style of governing.

How can there be bi-party-ism if compromise is impossible without trashing the Constitution and abandonment of our core values? If self-reliance, liberty, and pursuit of individual happiness is to survive how can we compromise with the Marxist edict of “to each one’s need and each one’s ability”. That means distributing the wealth? That type of a system cannot survive even in a dictatorship, as we have seen with the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain countries?

[Bhoy]

Thanks for your comment. There was an American Thinker article this morning that depressed me a lot —

January 02, 2011
The Triumph of Propaganda
By Nemo Almen

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/01/the_triumph_of_propaganda.html

which concludes:

Today, neither side tells the truth, and everybody suffers. The triumph of propaganda allows oil companies to dictate energy policy [vii], health insurance companies to hamstring much-needed health care reform, and the government to lead a witch hunt against banks while shirking responsibility for the largest financial crisis in our generation. The result is trillions in wasted monies, a nation divided and disillusioned, and worse and worse people coming to power on both sides [viii]. We should all know where this trajectory leads. It leads to one last question: what brand of totalitarianism do you want — the imperialist megalomania of a Cheney or the impotent welfare state of Obama?

Nemo Almen is the author of The Last Dodo: The Great Recession and our Modern-Day Struggle for Survival.

Well we haven’t heard the fat lady sing yet.

Thanks for your comments.

[takenoprisoner]

Well said. We will defeat the marxists, and their enablers. We will fight them til death do us part. Whether it be accorded the ballot cast, or on the battlefield. One way or another, all marxists will be defeated.

We will not compromise.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”After the Democrats’ shellacking at the polls in November, liberal pundits began evoking the Republican Congress that took power after a similar electoral defeat during President Harry Truman's first term. The “do nothing” Congress lasted just two years; in 1948, the Republicans ceded control of the Hill, and Truman was narrowly re-elected president. President Obama would like to replay this script and will take every opportunity to tag the incoming House Republican majority as obstructionist, irresponsible and out of touch”

If things play out the way I imagine House Republicans will use their majority investigative committees (and the alternative media) to keep Obama’s agenda unpopular looking towards 2012.

The MSM will be trying to pressure the RINOS to cut deals with Democrats as we saw with Lame Duck Session for one purpose: get Obama re-elected. They will keep on saying that it is in Republicans best interests to compromise and that the voters dont want investigations into government waste and anti-job impacts. But they never said this when Bush was President. And they will report the really bad sounding stuff themselves if it makes a good story.

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[stephenjohnbanker]

The RINOS WILL cut deals. Bet on it.

[Impy]

Obama could win but I can’t see them winning back the House and it will be damn hard for them to keep the Senate. It would be more a repeat of 1996.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Obama could win but I can’t see them winning back the House and it will be damn hard for them to keep the Senate. It would be more a repeat of 1996.”

I think that Republicans learned from their political mistakes from the 1990s that helped Clinton win. They will spend the next two years making a case against Obama instead of losing costly battles, but I could be wrong. We will know by summer how things will play out just as we did in 2009 as Obama-care started sinking.