-
Farewell to the Spectator
December 16, 2011 | 8 comments
-
Tentative Praise for Ryan’s New Bipartisan Medicare Plan
December 15, 2011 | 3 comments
-
The Day Ahead: Thursday, December 15
December 15, 2011 | 0 comments
-
Examiner for Romney, National Review Against Gingrich
December 14, 2011 | 39 comments
-
Paul Ryan to Introduce New Medicare Plan with Democrat Ron Wyden
December 14, 2011 | 4 comments
The Spectacle Blog
Last night, reporters got their hands on copies of the “Pledge to America” — the GOP’s remake of the 1994 Contract with America for this year’s elections. Jon Ward has a good overview of what’s in the Pledge, as well as the text of the document itself, at the Daily Caller.
Regarding the Pledge, the editors of National Review write:
The inevitable question will be: Is the pledge as bold as the Contract?
The answer is: The pledge is bolder. The Contract with America merely promised to hold votes on popular bills that had been bottled up during decades of Democratic control of the House. The pledge commits Republicans to working toward a broad conservative agenda that, if implemented, would make the federal government significantly smaller, Congress more accountable, and America more prosperous.
In other words, the Pledge isn’t merely a propose to enact legislation, it is also a bold description of a right-wing ideal. Of course the key words are if implemented.
In his article for the September issue of the Spectator, Grover Norquist described one of the key merits of the Contract with America:
[Rep. Dick] Armey, with his chief of staff Kerry Knott and press secretary Ed Gillespie, took the lead in creating the Contract, first compiling the list of issues and then assigning the hard work of putting pleasant-sounding ideas into real world legislative language. The resulting 10 legislative proposals, such as welfare reform and cutting the capital gains tax, totaled 140 pages of legislative text…
RNC chairman Haley Barbour, now the governor of Mississippi, strongly supported the Contract, devoting an office at RNC headquarters to promoting it and paying for the $700,000 full page ad in the TV Guide, the largest circulation magazine at the time. The ad was perforated and urged voters to tear it out and “keep this page to hold us accountable.” It had little boxes to check off as each part of the Contract was voted on. The bottom line read, “If we break this contract, throw us out. We mean it.”
The Contract promised that if they won a majority in the House, Republicans would hold up-or-down votes on its 10 items within 100 days…
Norquist explained that the reason the Contract was so narrow, limited to specific pieces of legislation, was that it was “a governing document, not a campaign tool.”
The Pledge, in contrast, has no specifics about necessary legislation but instead, as the NR editors point out, plenty of rhetoric on the direction of the country, as well as, in Jon Ward’s words, a Tea Party-style “full-throated endorsement of conservative grassroots populism, casting Washington elites as the problem and the Constitution as the solution.”
Sounds like a campaign tool, not a governing document.
Siegfried X| 9.23.10 @ 10:23AM
The Pledge essentially says: Restore everything to the way it was the day President Bush left office, plus add some procedural gimmicks. There is not much else there.
However, this _IS_ a Republican document. It moves the ball to the right. It may be "Republican light", but it definitely isn't "Democrat light".
The Pledge has real legislation, like reducing the budget 10%. Realistically, we couldn't get any more than that as long as an extreme Marxist is President.
Siegfried X| 9.23.10 @ 10:26AM
However, I totally disagree with NR calling this "bold". That is absurd. Many of these ideas were already released, and have been floating around for years. This is a John Boehner document, meaning it is hyper-cautious. In every way, shape, and form it is cautious, not bold.
Ned the Red| 9.23.10 @ 10:40AM
I don't know, but I think they are sticking their necks out by not inserting any language promising to "reach across the aisle."
Just kidding, but I am sure they will be chastised for this media loved remission.
Maybe they could have promised to "retch across the aisle."
Michael L. Hauschild| 9.23.10 @ 10:53AM
"Sounds like a campaign tool, not a governing document."
First off, they are lying; they know as practitioners of campaign expediency it is simple beltway rhetoric, the likes of which the voters are no longer falling for. These “endowment at all cost” clowns actually believe we will fall for their deceit while they either hide behind procedure; take turns trading votes, or pontificate with a veto pen stuck up their ass.
Richard H. Davis| 9.23.10 @ 11:46AM
Notice that there's nothing about earmarks here. I think that that says everything about the seriousness of the Repubicans in cutting spending. Earmarks are a tiny fraction of the budget and many of them are good, but they are the canary in the coal mine. If you can't agree on earmarks, you won't be able to agree on actual cuts.
Booger| 9.23.10 @ 11:59AM
Booger's contract w/America.
1. A vote to repeal Obamacare in both houses every session.
2. If the vote in 1 fails, zero out funding for Obamacare in the all federal budgets. This will explicitly include zero funding for the IRS to hire enforcement agents.
3. Freeze all non-defense spending at 2008 levels.
4. Top to bottom audits of the resumes of federal bureaucrats in all departments. Resume padding has become endemic, many highly paid federal employees are entrenched in their careers as a result of resume fraud. Any federal employee found to have a fraudulent resume is immediately fired. Any federal employee contesting this firing should be criminally prosecuted for mail fraud: submitting false information to obtain government employment through the postal service. This audit will be conducted by the F.B.I.
5) A hiring freeze for non-defense departments until item 4 is completed.
6) All savings from items one through five will be used in a three-pronged approach: a) one-third to new tax cuts b) one-third to defense re-capitalization c) one-third to deficit reduction.
7) Institution of a flat federal income tax of 10%, retaining mortgage, child and charitable contribution deductions; exempting the first $20,000 of income; and eliminating the marriage penalty.
8) Reduction of the capital gains tax to a flat 10%.
9) Introduction of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
10) Authorization of the sale of f-22s and rebuilt/refurbished b-1 strategic bombers to Israel, along with a prohibition of selling ANY stealth aircraft technology to ANY other Middle Eastern nation.
11) Open up full drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, and zero out the budget of any federal agency that attempts to interfere. Authorize two new nuclear power plants per year and zero out the federal budget of any federal agency that attempts to interfere.
Dan| 9.23.10 @ 1:06PM
Okay, so it is a campaign document. But y'know folks, unless you WIN the campaign, you can't IMPLEMENT a damn thing. At 21 pages, even with charts and graphs and sidebars, it's plenty long enough without including EVERYbody's laundry list of policies and plans. In short, I like it. It lays down the line in the sand nicely, it has some good language, it quotes RR and JFK, and it says what polls and common sense tell us 80% of the nation agrees with--and will vote for in the CAMPAIGN season, which is, in case you didn't notice, where we are now.
P.S. Those who say "Yeahbut, even if we take the Senate too, Obama will just veto everything!" should be smiled at with the response, "Let him! PLEASE Let him!" because of course the NEXT Campaign Season is already happening now, too. And the more Obama fights the real change, the more we can sort out any RINO candidates and get a real conservative as our standard-bearer for 2012.
Tim*| 9.23.10 @ 1:23PM
Social Security & Medicare Spending Need Solutions.
This Stick Of Dynamite is dangerously being kicked down the road .
dale| 9.26.10 @ 11:51AM
The Pledge is a ruse, just as the "Contract with America" was. All Speaker of the House Newt did was promote NAFTA, send 8 million jobs overseas, now we wonder why we have a "jobless recession"
"Fool me once shame on them, fool me again, shame on ugh" George Bush see article:
http://www.devvy.com/new_site/.....92410.html