The GOP's "A Pledge to America"

YouTube - Republican Whip Eric Cantor Goes "On The Record" To Discuss GOP's "Pledge to America"

On Friday July 30, 2010, I wrote a post entitled, "The Republican Party Needs to Offer Solutions; not Just Being the Party of No."  I stated that the Republican Party needs an agenda which they would push for if they were to regain control of Congress once again.  I also mentioned the Republican Party needs a leader to articulate a vision for America.  So far, there hasn't been a leader in the Republican Party to emerge that can articulate a strong vision for America.  The Republicans did unveil their draft of their "A Pledge to America" last week.  Consequently, that document does leave a lot to be desired.  Those that were involved in the drafting of the document are some of the same Republican holdovers who were in the majority party in Congress during the Bush administration.  I guarantee you the Republican incumbents aren't going to go very far with this pledge.  One reason is if they regain the majority in Congress, President Obama will veto any bill they try to pass in Congress.  President Obama is very socialistic in his thinking and I can't see him compromising with the Republicans like former president Bill Clinton did in some areas back during the 1990's.  Also, there are many Republicans who are nothing but RINO's in Congress.  There will only be very few that will attempt to stand for constitutional principles.  The only Congressmen most likely to do that will be those who represent the Tea Party, even if that.  I don't trust the Republicans in Washington any more than the Democrats.  They're the minority party right now and they're playing the role of the loyal opposition.  The primary thing the Republicans have on their mind right now is to regain the majority in Congress so they can once again be at the seat of power. 

The GOP's "A Pledge to America" consists of 21 pages.  According to an article in the USA Today, the House Republican leaders vowed to reverse the course of Washington and "realign our country's compass" in a wide-ranging agenda unveiled six weeks before the fall elections.  The document was released at a Virginia hardware and lumber store.  It focused largely on government spending, the economy and ways to roll back ideas proposed by President Obama, including the new healthcare law.  First of all, they need to wage a campaign in Congress to repeal Obamacare.  What's troubling is the Republicans didn't attempt to filibuster this new healthcare bill that was passed in March.  I know the Republicans didn't have the votes to stop the passage of healthcare, but they've could've held a filibuster.  They didn't do that.  I don't see the Republicans mounting a strong attempt to repeal Obamacare if they were to regain the House and Senate.  Even if Congress passed a bill to repeal Obamacare, it would automatically be vetoed by President Obama.

 One of the obvious problems with this pledge is the new spending proposals.  They desire to roll back government spending to the pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels.  They want to roll spending back to the 2008 pre-TARP level.  The problem was spending levels were ridiculously high prior to the TARP bailout program.  Washington's spending levels are now on steroids.  As Glenn Beck stated on his Fox News program last Thursday, this spending proposal "stinks on ice."  The Republicans have to be serious about reining in excessive spending.  The Republicans have no desire to do so because the Republican Congressmen want to spend money on programs for pet projects in their districts.  Some of them are also supportive of earmarks, which need to be eliminated.  When House Minority Leader John Boehner was the House Majority leader for several months in 2006, he didn't make any attempt to rein in ridiculous amounts of government spending.  I don't expect this current group of Republicans to do much differently.  For the 12 years Republicans held power in Congress, they didn't exercise restraint in spending for the most part, esp. not under the Bush administration.  It's all cheap talk.

Some of the programs the Republicans need to tackle is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  Medicare is already broke.  Social Security will eventually go bankrupt unless some dramatic course of action is taken in the next few years.  Former president George W. Bush made some attempt to privatize Social Security during the first few months of his second term in 2005, but it didn't go anywhere.  We need to remove these programs from the government.  I need to point out something. We can't overnight just make the decision to halt Social Security immediately.  For example, there are millions of Americans (including seniors) that have payed into Social Security.  There must be a transitional process involved in which federal social security will be phased out over a gradual process.  We don't want to leave those retirees that have paid into this program to be left high and dry.  Some common sense has to be used when attempting to phase out these government programs.  But they must eventually be phased out because they comprise about twenty plus something percent of the economy.  The percentage will continue to grow as the Baby Boom generation retires in large droves in the next several years.  Who's going to be audacious enough to stand up to recommend that we eliminate these entitlement programs?  Nobody! 

Some of the other provisions of this pledge is to cancel the TARP bailout program, which needs to be done.  The problem is most of the Republicans who are in office now supported the TARP bailout in 2008.  Am I to believe they are going to end the TARP bailout program after supporting it in October 2008 to bail out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG, to name a few?  They also want to cancel the "unspent" stimulus funds past last year.  Good luck with that.  I wonder if there's any stimulus money leftover.  Congress spends money as quickly as they place their hands on it.  The pledge also calls for allowing the American people to purchase health coverage across state lines to make prices more competitive.  I believe that's a good proposal.  We need to allow interstate competition concerning these healthcare companies so the consumer has more choices in which to decide which kind of coverage they desire.  Consequently, the Republicans several months ago didn't attempt to filibuster the healthcare overhaul bill that the Democrats jammed down the throats of the American people. 

Other things they needed to suggest was to build a border fence to secure our borders.  Were they going to do that?  No.  Some of the corporations that support their campaigns want illegal aliens to work for them so they can pay the illegals cheaper wages.  Therefore, the borders will still remain open.  The Republican leadership also didn't include any provisions concerning energy independence.  We still import oil from the Middle East.  We need to do everything possible to marginalize the U.S.'s need to depend on the U.S. for their products.  Why won't the Republicans suggest we make the Middle East irrelevant to our national interests?  Because those lobbyists who contribute to their campaign coffers have business interests in the Middle East. 

This whole "Pledge to America" is just a dog-and-pony show by the Republican Party.  They're just using it as a means to give the impression they're a different Republican Party.  They're the same old Republican holdovers who held power when Bush was president.  They haven't changed.  They're just jockeying to regain the majority in Congress so they can regain their seat of power once again.  They need an agenda to return to constitutional principles but this "Pledge to America" falls short in a number of areas.  Some of the crucial areas they've should've addressed wasn't covered.  This pledge will never move anywhere with the same old incumbent Republicans in charge.  This pledge isn't sufficient in addressing the vast problems facing America today.