The GOP Releases “A Pledge To America”
John Boehner has been measuring the drapes in the Speaker’s office for a few months now. The latest polling however shows the GOP surge may be fading a bit now that people are getting a look at some of their candidates. So the Republicans have released their “new” plan called “A Pledge to America.”
It contains a lot of feel-good stuff (I like the part about fixing the economy), then we get to this eyebrow-raiser:
We pledge to honor the Constitution as constructed by its framers and honor the original intent of those precepts that have been consistently ignored – particularly the Tenth Amendment, which grants that all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
In case anyone thought Republicans were softening in their position on same-sex marriage there is this part:
We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values.
So what are these new ideas? Cut spending and magically cut the deficit by reducing taxes for the wealthy. Also repeal & replace the health care law. The most overused words in the document “common sense.” The White House had a pretty good response:
Tonight, we learned more details about the Congressional Republican agenda – their “Pledge to America.” With this plan, they have made clear that they want to take America back to the same failed economic policies that caused this recession. Instead of charting a new course, Congressional Republicans doubled down on the same ideas that hurt America’s middle class.
Here’s what they made clear:
– Tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires by borrowing $700 billion we can’t afford;
– Tax hikes for 110 million middle-class families and millions of small businesses;
– Cutting rules and oversight for special interests like big oil, big insurance, credit card and mortgage companies and Wall Street banks;
– Doing nothing to stop the outsourcing of American jobs or to end tax breaks that are given to companies that ship jobs overseas;
All while adding trillions to our nation’s deficit.Their plan is also notable for what it doesn’t talk about: protecting Social Security and Medicare from privatization schemes; investing in high-quality education for our nation’s children; growing key industries like clean energy and manufacturing; and rebuilding our crumbling roads, rails and runways.
This is the same agenda that caused the deepest recession since the Great Depression, costing 8 million jobs, wiping out trillions in family wealth and setting middle-class families back. Instead of a pledge to the American people, Congressional Republicans made a pledge to the big special interests to restore the same economic ideas that benefited them at the expense of middle-class families.
Tags: Party of No, Republicans
O’Donnell and Urquhart should stand up for private sector developer Stoltz. The Stoltz project in Greenville is the perfect opportunity for our Delaware GOP Tea Candidates to take a stand against government regulations strangling the private sector. The land is privately owned purchased with private money. The plan meets Country code standards. Since when do we permit bureaucrats, courts, politicians to get involved with how high or how wide a private building on private land can be?
Perhaps they could have a press conference to discuss it on top of the Rollins Building.
Pledge to America = Contract ON America II
The language of the pledge clownishly echoes the grievances section of the Declaration of Independence, with absolutely no logical basis, thus pandering to the teabag tri-cornered hat crowd.
Republican = Teabagger
The problems we face today are serious issues that we knew would happen. And the answer does not fit on a bumper sticker or sound byte.
We have slackers as the younger generation, who are living at home and not starting families and adding to the economy. And on the opposite end we have a large segment of the population who are no longer building wealth, and instead retiring.
It has been long in coming, but it is here, and it has created alot of challenges.
So we need more that simple ideals that are desperate tactics to keep the party from unraveling.
Buried deep in this manifesto is a plan to decrease the number of Federal employees and replace them with private contractors. Hmm, sounds familiar. Where did I see this before? Oh, wait, I know – Dumbya did the same thing, giving inherently government jobs to his buddies in the private sector. Yeah, the GOP is continuing the Reagan war on Federal employees.
One question we should be asking these Pledge Takers (related to the Oath Takers?) is how they’re going to look someone in the eye and tell them they no longer have health care because of their pre-existing condition. As Denzel Washington once said, “explain it to me like I’m a 4 year old.”
Ezra Klein’s take:
OUCH!
Anyone notice that they officially released the pledge the very day that many of the health reforms are to go into effect? They are trying to distract the news from those positive reforms with their Plague on America.
Privatize? Remember the Kids For Cash scandal? Thousand of kids sent to serve time in a privatized prison in Pennsylvania? Happening 2000-2007. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33539621/
Can you imagine a judge taking a $500 kickback for each kid he sentenced to jail just to fatten him and the shareholders of the privatized prison. This is what we are up against folks.
This is an awesome graphic — The GOP Pledge To America Is An Allegiance To The Past
And it should be the brand of choice when talking about this useless bit of BS.