Republicans and Obama Spar over GOP's 'Pledge to America'
Jessica Rettig

Obama calls the House Republicans' policy outline "irresponsible"

With lumber stacked high in the background and not a necktie in sight, Republican Party leaders staged an outside-the-beltway scene at a Virginia hardware store recently for their latest appeal to disgruntled Americans. House GOP leaders rolled out a "Pledge to America" as a platform for their envisioned House takeover in November.

But President Obama characterized the Republican policy outline as "irresponsible."

On NBC's Today show, he said that "they propose $4 trillion worth of tax cuts and $16 billion in spending cuts, and then they say we're going to somehow magically balance the budget. That's not a serious approach."

Democrats throughout the campaign season have characterized Republicans as "the party of no" that tries to block Obama's initiatives but lacks policy alternatives. With their pledge, the House GOP leaders has responded with a broad agenda covering long-favored Republican ideas and new counter-Obama measures. These include permanently extending the Bush-era tax cuts (including for the wealthy), repealing and replacing the Obama healthcare law, canceling unspent stimulus funds and barring future bailouts, and rolling back federal spending to the 2008 level (except for spending on the military and the elderly)."Republicans have heard the American people," said Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the party's leader in the House. The Republicans' 45-page pledge (which includes graphics) is something of an update to the GOP's "Contract with America," presented in 1994 when then-Minority Leader Newt Gingrich and his allies stood in suits and ties on the steps of the Capitol to present a short statement of principles that helped pave the way for winning House control later that year. This time, with the rise of the Tea Party movement fueled by anti-incumbent sentiment, the Republicans went out of their way -- about 30 miles from the Capitol to Sterling, Va. -- to appear distant from official Washington.

The document describes two dozen measures that fall under the party's five broad themes: to create jobs, to reduce spending and size of government, to repeal and replace Obama's healthcare law, to reform and restore trust in Congress , and to maintain national security.

The pledge, in both language and substance, invokes the sentiments of conservatives who favor a return to the values of the Constitution, says Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez. "It's very pro-America," she says, adding that the pledge will resonate "especially with Tea Party voters -- these are folks that are very concerned about spending, concerned about the role of government, and also are very patriotic. That's why the appeal of this promise is very important."

But Democrats see fresh ammunition to use against the GOP.

"No matter how they package it, Americans know the real Republican agenda," says Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi . "Republicans want to privatize Social Security, ship American jobs overseas, and give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires."

One Democratic aide depicted the GOP event as a hypocritical exercise.

While Republicans traveled to a privately-owned store to express their plans to help small businesses, the aide noted, they returned to the House chamber shortly afterward and voted against a Democratic-sponsored small-business assistance bill that had previously cleared the Senate.

Beside's Obama's criticism of the GOP initiative, some Republicans have been cool towards the pledge because of its shortage of specifics and its failure to adequately address key economic policy issues among fiscal conservatives, such as curtailing earmarks and future entitlement spending. Social conservatives have also voiced concerns about its lack of attention to issues such as abortion and gay marriage.

Boehner and other Republican leaders defended the pledge in appearances on Sunday television talk shows.

Boehner, for example, said that the pledge as intended as a starting point and that a more "systemic" process will follow. "Let's not get to the potential solutions," he said on the Fox News Sunday program. "Let's make sure Americans understand how big the problem is. Then, we can begin to talk about possible solutions and then work ourselves into those solutions that are doable."

GOP's 45-page "Pledge to America"

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