PrintMarch 27, 2009
Hook, Line, and Sinker
48 hours after once again being labeled the "Party of No", House Republican leaders took Barack Obama's bait and rushed out an unnecessary blueprint of an alternative budget to his road to hell paved with 3.4 trillion dollars.
Before the GOP proceeds any further, someone needs to remind them again that they are the minority party in Congress and do not have a party leader in the Oval Office.
Although the American public is nervously waiting for the day to come to pass when a Democrat-led Congress will allow Obama to spend more money by far than any other president in our nation's history, what they are not waiting for is for the GOP to stop him.
De facto Prime Minister Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), are hyper-partisan leaders that are calling the shots in the legislative branch and the GOP has been marginalized to the degree that they have no ability to legislate and are limited to taking one of only two available positions: say no and explain their reasoning or capitulate to the desires of the left on all key legislation.
Yesterday, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) released an outline of the Republicans' alternative budget that is long on conservative rhetoric and platitudes, but short on details that will not be available until next week.
It not only hurts the Republicans to behave in what has become a common habit of the Obama administration, to announce that they are planning to make a plan, but it makes them look unorganized and a Politico report indicates there was some disagreement within leaders of the party about making this announcement at this time before a full plan could be unveiled.
That report gives credence to suggestions the left has been making all along about the party's infighting and lack of real leadership.
Again, the GOP needs a reality check, fast.
The results of the historic November 2008 election were an indication that the majority of American voters do not have confidence in the Republican Party's ideas to move this country forward and unfortunately their ideas will only become relevant again if and only if Obama's policies fail.
The message here is not that "if you can't win, don't try", but it is necessary that the party understands that even if they do suggest alternatives to legislation, the left will ridicule their ideas anyway, President Obama will continue to make speeches with straw man arguments that implicate them as just the party of opposition without merit, and Democratic leaders in Congress will continue to conduct business under the premise that those that win the elections earn the right to write the bills.
