1. Is there an unspoken consensus among the leadership in Washington that things are about to get much worse?\u00a0 It would answer some questions which I do not feel have been adequately answered yet, and I do not seem to be alone in this.<\/p>\n
2. The rumor that those Senators and perhaps Representatives who voted against the recent bill will not be eligible to serve on the super-committee is disturbing.\u00a0 There is an aspect to it that makes sense, as a whip device, but it doesn’t quite fit there.\u00a0 it looks more like a weapon aimed at splitting or suppressing the Tea Party, in exactly the same way that Democrats use tax hikes to split or suppress the Republican Party.<\/p>\n
Obviously, McConnell would like a unified front, but he knows he won’t get one.<\/p>\n
If a Republican votes for a tax hike, that erodes support\u00a0from the right.\u00a0 This is why Democrats strive mightily to bring Republicans on board for even tiny tax hikes–it’s the weakness, not the expense, that dooms weak Republicans.\u00a0 Similarly, if a Tea Party Republican votes for this awful bill, then the Tea Party will rightly savage that guy, and throw him in the same RINO bucket with the likes of Olympia Snowe, whom by the way we have to thank for ObamaCare (at one point, it was up to her, and she folded).<\/p>\n
3. Boehner and McConnell seem to have negotiated with their democrat opponents while doing battle against their Tea party allies.\u00a0 This is the same thing that happened during the budget\/CR debacle, and I said so at the time.\u00a0 And the first betrayal, the seating of big-spenders like sixteen-term Representative Hal “Prince of Pork” Rogers to important positions on committees that the GOP would be bit players on if not for the Tea Party.\u00a0 Not only does the ideological stance of Rogers rankle, but the things he says about the Tea Party an about government spending are unacceptable.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/house-gop-appoints-prince-pork-hal-rogers-chair\/story?id=12343673<\/a> Hal Rogers story from 2008, just after named to chair approps<\/p>\n 1. Is there an unspoken consensus among the leadership in Washington that things are about to get much worse?\u00a0 It would answer some questions which I do not feel have been adequately answered yet, and I do not seem to be alone in this.<\/p>\n 2. The rumor that those Senators and perhaps Representatives who voted against the recent bill will not be eligible to serve on the super-committee is disturbing.\u00a0 There is an aspect to it that makes sense, as a whip device, but it doesn’t quite fit there.\u00a0 it looks more like a weapon aimed at splitting or suppressing the Tea Party, in exactly the same way that Democrats use tax hikes to split or suppress the Republican Party.<\/p>\n Obviously, McConnell would like a unified front, but … Continue reading