Weekly Column - 11/08/2010

Here's this week's column:

"The Pledge [to America] puts forth a clear plan to end the current uncertainty, starting with stopping all looming tax hikes so that small businesses can get back to creating jobs. This is followed by a blueprint for fiscal sanity that begins with cutting spending to pre-"stimulus," pre-bailout levels, a move that will save taxpayers $100 billion in the first year alone." – John Boehner, Why You Should Vote For Republicans

Thus wrote the new republican majority leader on the eve of the election which propelled him and his party out of the political wilderness and back into some semblance of power. It would have been better to have written nothing at all. When it comes to fiscal responsibility, the republicans are no different from the democrats, as these statements prove. Boehner’s party is as serious about reducing government as Pelosi’s was sincere about ending the wars.

Tuesday’s election was about one man: Barack Obama. Voters were unimpressed with the first two years of his term—during which the economy tanked, deficits grew boundlessly, and billions were meted out to those with political connections, without appreciably reducing unemployment—and they sought to take it out on his party. Whether or not this is fair is beside the point. Whatever further legislative plans are up his sleeve, the president must now contend with a house dominated by republicans.