by Jules Witcover

The House Republicans, seeking to shed the image as the Party of No slapped on by the Democrats, have finally come out with a "Pledge to America." It essentially amounts to a continuation of the obstructionism that has marked their behavior since President Obama took office.

For openers, it calls for repeal of his health-care reform legislation enacted last year, and cutting off what has not yet been spent on Obama's economic stimulus package and to bail out Wall Street firms. It would freeze spending for most other domestic initiatives, halt most new federal hiring and ban all federal funding for abortions.

The only prominent "yes" in the pledge is to extend all of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, slated to expire at year's end, including those for the wealthiest Americans targeted by Obama and estimated by him to save $700 billion. The pledge would continue the middle-class cuts that Obama has charged are being "held hostage" to protect the cuts for the rich.

The pledge was a faint echo of Newt Gingrich's trumpeted "Contract with America" of 1994 that helped the GOP capture the House and make him speaker. Nine of the Contract's 10 conservative items quickly passed the House but most failed in the Senate, and Gingrich, after an excess of personal arrogance and hubris, later left Congress. He has resurfaced as an outspoken embracer of the tea party movement with obvious rekindled presidential ambitions.

The pledge was presented as the party's promissory note for action upon its hoped-for takeover of the House in November's midterm elections projected by most polls to win or come close to the 39 seats needed for a House majority. But for all the emphasis on cutting the federal establishment down to size, it offered no specifics on how or where most of the cuts would be achieved.

Of the usual entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare that continue to bloat the federal budget, the pledge said only the Republicans "will make the decisions that are necessary." Democrats quickly suggested it meant talk of "privatizing" Social Security through stock-market investments, a notion that has withered with scary Wall Street fluctuations.

The introduction of a legislative agenda from the House Republicans is an answer to the Democratic allegation of the Party of No, one of the central contentions the Obama administration has been relying on to persuade voters that putting the Republicans back in charge on Capitol Hill would only mean further obstructionism, or stalemate.

With Obama still in the Oval Office for at least the next two years, he would be hard-pressed to use the presidential veto power that he has resisted in favor of a 20-month effort to reach out to the opposition party. That strategy has been rebuffed, and widely criticized as a waste of time or sign of weakness within his own party.

The GOP pledge offered a clear nod to the tea party movement that has been credited with Republican primary victories by anti-establishment candidates in a string of states, most recently in Alaska and Delaware. It echoed the insurgents' demands for smaller government and a stricter adherence to the language of the Constitution.

"In a self-governing society," it declared, "the only bulwark against the power of the state is the consent of the governed, and regarding the policies of the current government, the governed do not consent," an obvious reference to Obama's health care act, drawing low approval in the polls.

It charged that "an arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites makes decisions, issues mandates and enacts laws without accepting or requesting the input of the many. " It pledged to "honor the Constitution as constructed by its framers ... to advance policies that promote greater liberty, wider opportunity, a robust defense and national economic prosperity." And it promised "to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American families."

All this was the familiar boilerplate conservative rhetoric that has come to dominate Republicanism at least since the Reagan era. Taken together, it reads like more of the same from the gang that strives to escape from the label of the Party of No.

 

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Republicans Pledge More 'No' | Politics

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