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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
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
The pledge was a faint echo of Newt Gingrich's trumpeted "Contract with America" of 1994 that helped the
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
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
With Obama still in the
The
"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.
Available at Amazon.com:
Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future
The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama
The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy
The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics
Bush on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks
The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House
AMERICAN POLITICS
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Republicans Pledge More 'No' | Politics
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