Posted on 12/05/2012 5:21:47 PM PST by VitacoreVision
Conservative groups are attacking Speaker of the House John Boehner for his decision to boot constitutionalist representatives off the Budget Committee.
Heritage Action accused Boehner of trying to find creative ways to fund President Barack Obamas big-government agenda. The group also compared Boehner with someone who notoriously broke his no-tax pledge: the nations 41st president.
In 1990, President George H.W. Bush broke his solemn pledge: read my lips: no new taxes, Heritage Action wrote in the email to supporters. It cost him the election. In more than 20 years since, congressional Republicans have avoided making the same mistake. And now, as our nations economy is struggling to produce growth, our leaders in Congress are about to make precisely the wrong decision.
Yesterday the three of them purged fiscal conservatives from committees as punishment for being authentically fiscal conservatives.
On the same day John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy punished fiscal conservatives for standing up for their convictions, they sold out their own convictions by agreeing to raise taxes by $800 billion. They intend to seem reasonable to the press in negotiations with the White House. Theyre going through an elaborate kabuki dance, but theyll get blamed nonetheless.
Pointing their fingers as fiscal conservatives now punished, casting them out as scape goats, will do nothing to woo the media or the White House, but we should be thankful. We should absolutely be thankful for these three men.
As the sun rises this morning we can look at John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy and know the opposition is not just across the aisle, but in charge of our own side in the House of Representatives. All the time and energy I would otherwise have to spend to convince conservatives that these gentlemen would be a problem for the GOP has been spared. Theyve proven it themselves.
Rumor has it that Ive been removed from the House Committee on the Budget. Remarkably, I still have not received a single call, e-mail, or text from Republican leadership confirming this story. In fact, I wouldnt even have learned about it if not for the news reports. I look forward to hearing from my partys leadership about why my principled, conservative voting record offends them. Thats sure to be a lively and entertaining conversation.
In the meantime, I can only speculate as to what specifically would make Republican leadership punish several of its partys most principled members. Rep. Tim Huelskamp, who was kicked off of both Budget and the Committee on Agriculture, voted with me against the 2013 House budget resolution because it does not sufficiently address the federal governments debt crisis. That was one of only three times during this Congress that I voted against the Chairmans recommendations in committee. In fact, I voted with the Republican Chairman more than 95% of the time, and I have voted with my partys leadership more than three-quarters of the time on the House floor.
What message does leaderships heavy-handedness send? It says that independent thinking wont be tolerated, not even 5% of the time. It says that voting your conscience wont be respected. It says that fulfilling your commitment to your constituents to work with both Republicans and Democrats to reduce our debt takes a back seat to the desires of corporate special interests. And, most troubling for our party, it says to the growing number of young believers in liberty that their views are not welcome here.
Ill miss working with my colleagues on Budget. I dont relish this situation, but if one thing is clear based on the response from the grassroots, its that leaderships actions will backfire. If they think kicking me off of a committee will lead me to abandon my principles or stifle my bipartisan work toward a balanced budget, I have a message for them: Youre dead wrong.
Kansans who sent me to Washington did so to change the way things are done not to provide cover for Establishment Republicans who only give lip service to conservative principles. If the rest of America is anything like the 700,000 Kansans I represent, then they know that the fiscal and cultural crises facing our nation require drastic changes to the way things are done in Washington not just symbolic gestures or more of the same.
OK. I concede that you must be right. I suppose Bohener is trying to find a way to make the Republican party relevant somehow. I don’t think he can without totally abandoning the principles we have always embraced in our Conservative numbers. This country has fallen into Socialism and Communism. That’s what the majority has voted for twice. Barring some catastrophic attitude adjustment, I don’t see that changing in my lifetime. I never thought I’d find myself without a country or a political party whose values I can respect and uphold.
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