In a post just a few minutes ago we read that the newly minted House majority is going to cut $32 billion. Remember the Pledge to America? Remember being told during the election that my Republican brethren were going to cut $100 billion out of the federal budget? As Erick Erickson points out, promises seem to be just for elections.
I know, the world can’t be fixed overnight. I also know that even if the House passed these cuts, AND even if the Senate did as well, President Obama would probably veto them. So what? At least they would have kept their promise.
Are the Republicans going to learn? Do we have to suffer ANOTHER disastrous Democrat majority in Congress before the GOP learns that if they don’t do what they promised then they don’t deserve to hold a majority?
Or, perhaps, the new, wide-eyed, bursting-at-the-seams-with-patriotism tea-paritiers realize that governing is about much more than pie-in-the-sky idealism (just as the Democratic majority - oops.)
ReplyDeleteEffective governing is about compromise. Politicians who appeal soley to their base are not politicians for long, and regardless of their screaming about change and a new order, the new GOPers are like all the rest before: they like their jobs and want to keep them, thank you.
Any TPer who believed that this new group was going to follow the letter of their promises (like no politician ever had before them) and live up to some unattainable ideal is even more detached from the rest of us than I thought.
Change is slow, methodical. Governing and Leadership needs to be all-inclusive and open. None of those traits seem to coexist with the purest of Tea Party platforms.