The Republican leadership just unveiled a “Pledge to America,” a series of commitments it is making to the American people going forward. It includes promises to cut taxes and spending, repeal Obamacare, and reduce the regulatory burden on business.
The reason this all sounds so good is twofold:
1. The current administration has been so bad in terms of explosive spending, higher taxes, major new suffocating regulations, and quadrupling deficits. We are parched for any drop of common sense conservatism coming from anybody in Washington.
And 2. The GOP has been in the wilderness for so long that it’s nice to see them get assertive and proactive, with a positive agenda heading into November and beyond.
The Pledge, however, is not great. It’s just OK. It’s better than nothing, and I’m glad they put something in writing. But there’s not a lot new here. What they’ve said they stand for is what they should be standing for anyway: cutting taxes, reducing spending through freezes and cuts, rolling back regs, repealing the horror of Obamacare, and so on. Well, duh! This is supposed to be the GOP platform. So they simply repackaged it and are selling it as a new “pledge.”
I know, I know: the Republicans have been in a tiny minority for a while, so they couldn’t really press these things. True, but then how do you explain the Bush years when the GOP was in power and spent like madmen? The reason there is a Tea Party movement in the first place is because the GOP establishment went down the road of big government and big spending for years. In 1994, the Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich, unveiled the “Contract with America,” a very similar pledge to Americans. Of the major programs the Contract promised to cut, spending on them ROSE by 13%. They got their butts handed to them in 2006 and 2008 for it.
So pardon me for being skeptical. I hope the GOP gets it this time. I hope they heard what the Tea Party—what we, the people—-are telling them. I hope this isn’t just a cynical move to get power, and then they’ll revert to form if they gain the majority.
I’m glad they put out something today, because something is better than nothing. But this pledge was the bare minimum. This is what we expect the GOP to be doing at the very least.
After November, they’d better get real and they’d better get creative, or 2012 might be unpleasant.
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