Tag Archives: Contract With America

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Cruz taunts fellow GOP senators

The junior Republican senator from Texas is proving a point I made the other day about the intraparty battle brewing over whether the shut the government down by cutting off money for the Affordable Care Act.

Ted Cruz asks, “What’s the alternative”?” to shutting ‘er down.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/07/trash-talk-politico-describes-team-cruz-attacks-on-fellow-republicans-as-taunting/

The Lone Star State firebrand – who’s been on the job less than eight months – wasn’t around to witness what happened when the Republicans got their heads handed to them over this very thing. The alternative, Sen. Cruz, is to work with Democrats and “establishment Republicans” to keep the government functioning.

Cruz also wasn’t in the Senate when that body – along with the House of Representatives – approved Obamacare. The Supreme Court then handed the Obama administration a clear victory when it ruled – albeit narrowly – that the law is in fact constitutional.

Thus, we have a standing law.

Congressional Republicans, though, keep trying to overturn what’s been done legally.

And this fight between the two wings of the GOP – the tea party wing and the establishment wing – is proving to be worth the price of entertainment all by itself.

Keep “taunting” those older, more experienced hands, Sen. Cruz.

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Tea Party vs. Establishment GOP

It’s going to be fun watching the tea party wing of the Republican Party take on the old dogs of the GOP.

It’ll be over Obamacare and whether it’s prudent to shut down the government to deprive the Affordable Care Act of the funds it will need to become operational.

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/313819-obamacare-funding-battle-pits-tea-party-vs-establishment-gop

Here’s what I see happening.

The establishment wing of the party knows the dangers of shutting the government down to prove some kind of political point. The Republicans tried that in the late 1990s. You remember that, yes? House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his band of GOP insurgents shut ‘er down over a budget fight with the Clinton administration; turned out Newtie really was mad because President Clinton didn’t give him a choice seat aboard Air Force One – but I digress.

The government shutdown didn’t work well for Gingrich and his Republican foot soldiers. They ended up getting their heads handed to them in the 1998 mid-term elections, Gingrich ended up quitting the House and President Clinton – despite being impeached by the House – ended his presidency on a high note.

The establishment guys remember all that. Their memories are painful. The tea party guys are new to this game of D.C. hardball politics. They’re righteous in their cause and, by golly, they’re going to have it their way or else.

I feel compelled to remind them that Newt Gingrich once was a righteous revolutionary who knew how to obtain power, but didn’t have a clue about what to do when it came time to actually use it.

A part of me is beginning to believe that history is going to repeat itself.

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Disappointed, but not surprised by congressman

Mac Thornberry is a longtime Republican member of Congress from the Texas Panhandle who has long touted his kinship with the land. He comes from a long line of Donley County ranchers.

He’s also benefited from government farm subsidies — and that makes his vote to strip food stamp money from the latest farm bill all the more maddening.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/07/3-texas-republicans-under-fire-for-collecting-farm-subsidies-then-voting-against-nutrition-programs/

Thornberry is among a handful of Texas congressmen, all Republicans, who have come under fire for their votes against the nutrition programs all the while taking money from the government for their own farming and ranching operations.

This is a disappointing development in Thornberry’s lengthy career in Congress.

He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1994 pledging to trim the size of government, which was a key tenet of the Contract With America on which the Republican slate of Senate and House candidates ran that year. Thornberry campaigned aggressively against a Democratic incumbent, Bill Sarpalius, for what he called wasteful spending policies — among other things. 

Now he’s been caught in a bit of a box. He toes the party line on cutting certain government programs, but he’s been revealed to be taking money at the time he’s denying it for others.

The term “hypocrite” keeps popping into my noggin.

 

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