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Kaslin wrote:

Very well said. Also what is important is concentrate on the Senate and make sure we get not just the majority, but the super majority back.

Yeah!!!! Why, if we can keep the House, with establishment leadership like Boehner and Cantor, take the Senate with establishment leadership like McConnell, and take the Presidency with a former Texas Governor like Perry, we could accomplish many things:

Double the budget of the Department of eduction in 4 or 5 years
Add 50% to the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency within 4 or 5 years.
Add 50% to the budget of the Department of Energy within 5 years.
Pass through a brand new entitlement for retirees, with no offseting budget cuts to "pay for it," and an open ended promise to every American that they will get more "free stuff" once they reach retirement age.

I could go on.

All of those things, and more happened the last time Republicans had a strong majority in both houses of Congress and a Republican President (who happened to be a former Governor of Texas).

Boehner and his party leadership promised last year that they would cut spending back to 2008 levels. Here's a picture of him holding up a copy of "A Pledge to America" (PDF Version).

Speaker John Boehner holds up a copy of "A Pledge to America" at Tart Lumber Company on September 23, 2010.

Now, I understand that the Senate will be a problem, and that the President will veto any actual spending cuts. However, so far, Boehner's Republican controlled House of Representatives has funded the government through Fiscal Year 2011 at levels higher than spending in Fiscal Year 2010. Further, the Republican Controlled House has already passed at least 7 of the 13 appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2012, and as far as I can tell, every one of those bills appropriates more in total than was appropriated to those departments in Fiscal Year 2011. (though I'm not 100% sure, and with FY 2011 being all in continuing resolutions, comparisons are difficult)

The Republicans not only have not presented any plan to live up to their promises last year, they haven't even started heading in the right direction with their legislative proposals.

In every respect, Boehner, Cantor, McCarthy, Hensarling and the rest of the GOP leadership have failed on spending. They continue to spend more money every year. If they can't get behind a 1% per year actual overall reduction (in absolute dollars) over the next few years, they haven't earned my support. They need to pass that through the House. If it doesn't survive the Senate or gets negotiated away in the conference, then it's on us to resolve the problems in the Senate.

But in 2010, the TEA Party elected the GOP to a majority in the House. We were clear in that election, and in elections since then, "Stop spending more than you take in, and stop borrowing money from foreigners and out of thin air to pay for spending we don't need."

Thus far, Boehner doesn't get it.

He needs a serious primary challenge from within his district, and I hope that he can be picked off. The same goes for Cantor, McCarthy and Hensarling.

That said, this clown who has announced doesn't meet my specifications. He apparently doesn't live in the district, and he doesn't look very serious to me.