Posted on 07/29/2011 6:42:52 AM PDT by shortstop
By their fruits ye shall know them.
That’s what Jesus said.
It’s not words, it’s not promises, it’s not slogans or associations.
It’s deeds.
That’s what shows the heart of a person. Not the promise they make in a time of ease, but the actions they take in a time of stress.
Like the vote on the Boehner bill.
It separates the wheat from the chaff in the Republican Party. It shows who is and who isn’t.
On the Boehner bill, the true believers stood their ground. The others caved. It was a test. Some passed. Some failed.
Those who stood with Boehner were wrong. Oh, the vote will help them in Washington. It undoubtedly curried for them some favor with the leadership and the lobbyists and the rest of the go-along-to-get-along crowd.
But it should doom them with Republicans who vote on principle.
Because Boehner abandoned principle.
And he didn’t even tell the truth.
Like the part where he says that his bill cuts spending by one dollar for every dollar of new borrowing authorized. That, he says, makes it revenue neutral.
Actually, it makes it status quo.
Or it would, if it were true.
Because in that dollar-for-dollar comparison, Boehner presumes we’re idiots. He apparently thinks that if he says something fast enough, and lets it go unpondered, that he can pull the wool over our eyes.
He thinks the books balance if you cut a dollar for every dollar you borrow. They don’t. See, when you borrow money, they have this thing called interest. It is a massive compounding portion of the debt.
Cutting spending by a dollar for every dollar you borrow still increases your net indebtedness because in addition to having to pay back that dollar, you have to pay back the interest on that dollar.
Boehner thinks we’re too stupid to realize that.
But lay that aside.
The fundamental flaw in Boehner’s bill is that it didn’t do anything. The cuts it outlined were inconsequential and not structural. They were window dressing.
A sop for idiots like you and me.
Yes, his never-going-to-happen six-month revisit of the issue would create a good issue to use against Obama and the Democrats next year, but ideally legislation is about something more substantive than the next election.
See, we already had an election.
The issue of the Boehner bill isn’t to be decided in the next election, it was decided in the last election. Some 80 new Republicans came to the House of Representatives, most of them because of promises they made to conservatives.
Boehner was the beneficiary of that. He is an accidental speaker, elevated to his office not for any great cause or platform he advanced, but because a social trend favored his party. He rode the wave, powerless to set its course or check its tide.
Not all the new Republicans understood that.
Because they have acted as if he was the master and they were the servant, when the truth is just the opposite.
Their confusion is not surprising. A cheering tea-party rally is a far different thing than a sit down in the Speaker’s Office. It is easier to stand for principle when hundreds applaud you for doing so than it is when it’s one-on-one with the guy who controls your fate in the House.
Some can pass that test, and some cannot.
Boehner failed by aiming too low. He failed by standing for expediency rather than principle.
And vainly do his defenders try to deflect blame onto the Democrats in the Senate or praise themselves for “changing the conversation.” We want legislation, not conversation. One is action, the other is hot air.
And Boehner offered hot air.
Yes, the apologists will point out that Democrats control the Senate and presidency. They will point to the other side and make excuses. The next election, they say, will be “the most important in history” and “we will get them then.” It all turns into a campaign ad where, oddly, the premise is, “Vote for us next year because we failed you this year.”
Well, we gave them the House last year, and they gave us the shaft.
Advancing a bill that had already been nixed by the Senate and the White House, Boehner still chose to take the low road. He chose to roughly approximate the Democrat position.
Last week, he floated a bill that let newly whipped Republicans hide behind a never-going-to-happen balanced-budget amendment. This week he apparently figured that charade would mollify the unwashed masses and he would be free to push his appeasement bill.
First the top Republican in the Senate suggested giving the president an open-ended debt cap with no spending cuts or promise of reform. Now the top Republican in the House suggests inconsequential cuts and no true reform of any kind.
It kind of makes you think that the Republican Party doesn’t get the big picture. Namely, that without conservative support, it is the perpetual minority party.
The Boehner bill is a test.
Look up your congressman’s vote, and grade it PASS or FAIL.
Allen West is in that group. Caved before it was even scored.
Yeah, but he’s correcting it now...
West too.
The one in real trouble is Obama and the Pea party (Democrats) ...
No plan
Not at the table
Not leading
Bottom line is to get himself through the next election.
How, pray tell, is Boner correcting?
it sucks having all of our nation’s wealth going into paying interest, however, it’s better than going towards Planned Parenthood or democrat unions.
Those genuine conservatives from Texas, who refused to be bought or threatened into abandoning their principles by Boehner/Obama, will have no problem being re-elected next year.
However, every TX rep who was twisting arms for Boehner must be primaried out of office next spring. We will make certain we find out who they were.
And the dems saying they won’t vote for “this bill” is a scam. If the house passes it thinking the dems won’t pass it or change it, they’re in for a rude awakening.
Could it be?
...that Boehner was this smart to wait until the GDP numbers came out to hammer it home knowing Obmama wanted to get it done BEFORE they came out? Could the squabble be feigned?
...or is it just coincidence and we’re too stupid to use these numbers to help get real cost cutting and CCB passed?
There is a Spock qoute I can’t quite get out of my head that is appropriate here.
This is why the Conservative movement never wins anything in the long term. Too many of you would rather fight your own side over purity of dogma then ever fight the 0 Dems on ANYTHING.
Here is the problem. You have about 100 conservatives and 436 liberals. When it is politically expedient, some of those libs vote with the conservatives.
The difference in parties is who gets to hold the gavel and tell the conservatives to piss off. We started making a change in 2010 with more local elections going to conservatives. At the national level all we did was make it a bit more difficult for the libs to get their bills through.
I suspect there are MANY, MANY, cities & states subscribing to this “policy.” The “gurgling Sound” you hear is the sound of America going down the drain of liberalism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu6ok5ykyuQ&feature=share
HOLY COW!!!!
Laura Ingraham was sitting in on the O'Reilly show and she had Rep Steve King on last night. Too bad she made an ass of herself.
Here's the disgusting video from that segment. She starts out all nice-nice, but about a third of the way thru, she goes into shrill-shrew mode on Rep King:
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1084964211001/gop-divided-on-debt-plan
I like Steve King.
Good grief. Folks we are in deep doodoo, and will never be able to recover from the financial crisis we are in, while this is going on. More and more Democrats coming to AMERICA.
God will judge the fruit - not you or me.
God is not the author of confusion !
Ron Paul??? He’s out if he doesn’t get elected President...
The only other Texas delegate voting No so far is Louis Gohmert...
Every other Texas GOP’er is voting for the Speakers plan...
Massive fail on their part...And they need to learn a massive lesson for this BS...
It is also a litmus test here on FreeRepublic.
Keep an eye out for those trying to conjole you or threaten you into supporting this monstrosity of a bill.
Watch their posts.
High probability that they compromise and many hot-button conservative issues.
The Tea Party should run a commercial that he wants to steal social security from old people in his district next election. ;)
You are right. We have to keep after the traitors if we want to control the GOP. Then Mr. West, if he survives the next election can have a leader to follow who is working to restore the Republic.
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