The First Plank in a New Contract with America
With recent polls showing that Republican opposition to the “stimulus” has helped make the party more competitive, the GOP has a chance to repeat the gains it made in the 1994 mid-term elections, quite possibly winning back the House and with an outside (okay, very outside) chance of recapturing the Senate.
But, if Republicans want to win, they have to do more than just run against the spendthrift policies of the Obama-Reid-Pelosi Democrats, they also, like their forebears in Clinton’s first term, need to run on a reform platform. To that end, they would be wise to put together an updated version of the Contract with America.
In this Contract, however, unlike the 1994 version, they must acknowledge that they made mistakes while in the majority. Back then, almost no one could remember when Republicans had controlled two consecutive Congresses. Now, many can. So, Republicans must make clear that they have learned from their mistakes in the majority.
This time, just as they did fifteen years ago, they can run against a Democratic leadership determined to centralize power, making it difficult for the minority to contribute. At the start of the current Congress, Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats rewrote House Rules, reversing Republican reforms and returning to old runs which made it all but impossible for the minority to offer alternative legislation or amendments to bills.
Republicans can once again campaign on being the party of open government, borrowing a page from Barack Obama’s successful presidential campaign. As he is reneging on his commitment to transparency, the Republicans can promise to hold his feet to the fire.
The first plank in a new Contract with America would be to do something with all legislation that Democrats promised (& failed) to do with the “stimulus”–post it online for a full 48 hours before voting.
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Here’s an idea for a plank: Develop American energy supplies to create jobs and lessen dependence on foreign oil.
Has anyone else noticed that the price of gasoline started going up the same time Chairman 0′s Interior Department canceled exploration in the coastal areas and in the shale deposits of Utah and Colorado?
Comment by V the K — February 16, 2009 @ 11:10 am - February 16, 2009
Of course it did. Unless the price of gas goes back up, the ecomony might recover and we don’t want that.
Comment by Kevin — February 16, 2009 @ 12:20 pm - February 16, 2009
Side topic, but related: I’m finally listening to Geithner’s speech from last Tuesday. I cannot believe WHAT A FREAKING IDIOT he is.
He claims that everyone except the Federal Reserve created the crisis. No, dude: the Federal Reserve, more than any other actor, created the crisis. By inflating the money supply for years, creating bubble after bubble – the tech bubble, the real estate and credit bubble, etc.
He claims that financial markets are broken. They aren’t: the things markets are doing, or that they would do if the government weren’t interfering, are the things needed to clean up balance sheets, punish the incompetent and the irrationally greedy, and lay the foundation for future growth. *Geithner* is breaking the markets, to the extent they are broken. His actions actively interfere with necessary adjustments.
He claims we need to get the banks lending again. NO. Excessive lending was/is the whole root and nature of the crisis!
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 16, 2009 @ 3:12 pm - February 16, 2009
I.e., restarting lending isn’t going to get us out of the crisis. At best, it might slightly delay the second wave of the crisis. At best.
Geithner and Obama are starting to remind me of animals backed into a corner. The world is changing. China hasn’t decoupled from the U.S. economy yet – but it will. (It’s not obvious yet, but China will recover faster than us in the second half of 2009, and that right there will be an advance in the decoupling.) American is destined to lose its financial position – because of the extreme abuse of the dollar, the extreme deficits and money creation, of the Greenspan-Clinton II-Bush-Bernanke-Obama-Geithner administrations. We need to ride those changes. We need to slash at away our failures and our consumer-debt economy, freeing our entrepreneurs to discover and invent and do all the things the (Communist) Chinese can’t do, in years to come. Obama and Geithner haven’t a clue about that. Their stupid, governmental (but I repeat myself) measures “fight the last war”, trying to prevent or deny the coming changes – as if it’s possible to stop the change. It isn’t.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 16, 2009 @ 3:24 pm - February 16, 2009
Ditto, V the K
One of two other planks in the contract should be; we will not take earmarks for our district. The other should be term limits, four terms in Congress and two in the Senate.
JC Watts, during his stay in Congress, was the largest carrier of pork to his district in Oklahoma. The longer they stay in Washington the more corrupt they become.
Comment by Roberto — February 16, 2009 @ 5:38 pm - February 16, 2009
If we really want to be the party of fiscal responsibility – one plank and one plank only – Fiscal Responsibility!!!!
Nothing off the table, including cuts in defense where justified.
Give up on most of the social crap. Let the locals have that slice of the pie to deal with as they see fit..
Comment by Sonicfrog — February 17, 2009 @ 12:12 am - February 17, 2009
Sonicfrog, Let the locals have that slice of the pie. . . That is really a second plank. Smaller Federal government, shrink the bureauacracy, and let the government closest to the problem handle it.
Comment by Roberto — February 17, 2009 @ 10:28 am - February 17, 2009