Paul Krugman: Republican's Operation "Rolling Tantrum"

Don't know when I have seen a title that describes Speaker John Boehner and the House Republicans better than "Operation Rolling Tantrum."  Last week, Boehner sent out the GOP Whip, Tom Cole (R-OK), to push for the House to pass the Bush Tax Cuts for those making less than $250,000.  Being the skeptic I am, I told some good friends that I thought this was a set-up as Cole was not going to break with leadership.  Lo and behold the truth came out yesterday:

"I don't think we need to put a formal proposal out on the table," Cole said on ABC's "This Week." "Speaker [John Boehner] has already said revenue is on the table. He has got an idea about how to get there in terms of not raises rates, but finding it in other ways through tax code reform. I think that makes a lot of sense, and that's a doable thing, but beyond that, you know, we'll wait and see how the negotiations go." 

Cole also bashed the plan Geithner brought to congressional leaders this week. "I want to thank the president and Tim Geithner for re-uniting and re-energizing the Republican caucus," he said. "Because that offer -- they must think John Boehner is Santa Claus, because that is a Christmas wish list, not a real proposal." 

The demeaning attitude of Cole and House Republicans toward the President and Treasury Secretary Geithner shows that the GOP did not learn one lesson from the November election -- they are as arrogant as ever.

While Republicans continue to promote the wealthy, the 3rd quarter has shown that Corporate Profits Hit Record High While Worker Wages Hit Record Low.  Yet we are supposed to want the wealthy to keep the Bush Tax Cuts which have all the loopholes for them including hedge fund managers?  The American people spoke in the recent Presidential election but seems Republicans in Congress have cotton balls in their ears as they didn't get the message.  

This article by Paul Krugman is classic on the tantrums being thrown by Republicans will probably continue until 2014 when the voters have a chance to send them to the unemployment line even in heavily gerrymandered districts and with voter suppression by the Republicans.  American people are fed up with the obstructionist tactics of Republicans.  It is not the Democrats this group of arrogant Republicans have to fear, it is Republicans like me who have had it with their obstructionist tactics, lies, and elitism.  

December 2, 2012, 4:01 pm 

Operation Rolling Tantrum

Paul Krugman, New York Times  

Oh, boy. This isn’t going to end, even when or if a deal is reached on defusing the austerity bomb; John Boehner has just declared that he’s going to hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage every time we hit the debt limit. Nor will it be a case of holding the nation at gunpoint until it meets GOP demands; Republicans are signaling that they don’t intend to make any specific proposals, they’re just going to yell and stamp their feet until Obama soothes them somehow. 

So this is going to be nightmarish, unless Obama surrenders — which I don’t think he will (because he shouldn’t). 

And one thing to think about: if the next two years are, as they seem likely to be, one long Republican tantrum, the 2014 election is not going to be a normal midterm. It will instead be a referendum on GOP obstructionism, which may attract a lot more attention — and much higher turnout — than normal. 

When the facts come out, McConnell is still the arrogant, underhanded Republican leader in the Senate.  Any Senator whose wife serves in the cabinet like his wife did for Bush is not someone I would trust.  Personally think that should be against the rules but even then it probably would have happened as this group of Republicans in leadership do not believe rules apply to them.

Rumor has McConnell offering a major aerospace company a safe haven from sequestering if they continue to build up their presence in Kentucky.  How many sole source contracts is McConnell going to promise to the same company in exchange for bringing business to Kentucky?  Inquiring minds want to know what the deal was to move company resources to Lexington which make no sense.  If McConnell said the sky was blue it would pay to go check.

December 2, 2012, 10:02 am 

The Full McConnell  

Paul Krugman, New York Times

In his interview with the Wall Street Journal, Mitch McConnell finally mentioned a few sort-of specifics about what spending cuts the GOP wants: raising the Medicare age, charging higher premiums to affluent Medicare recipients, and changing the price indexing of Social Security. But how much does all this amount to?

I’ve already noted that the CBO has estimated the fiscal savings from raising the Medicare age at $113 billion over the next decade. A study of health care options (pdf) from a few years ago put the savings from expanded premiums at $20 billion (Option 91) – that number would be somewhat higher now, but still small.

I haven’t found a 10-year estimate of the Social Security indexing idea, but we can roll our own. The idea is to replace the CPI with a “chained” measure that typically rises about 0.3 percentage points less per year. Apply this to the CBO projections of Social Security spending under current policy and I get 10-year savings of $186 billion. 

So, if we take all of McConnell’s ideas together, we get a bit more than $300 billion. Getting this would, by the way, impose substantial hardship – seniors would be forced into inferior private insurance, and there are good reasons to believe that the true inflation rate facing seniors is actually higher, not lower, than the CPI. Still, what we’re looking at overall is a saving equal to only about one-fifth of what Obama is proposing to raise by higher taxes. 

And that’s it; has anyone heard even a peep from the GOP about what else they’d like to cut?
This is pathetic – and these people are definitely not serious.

Republican lies are catching up with them.  Paul Krugman schools Republicans on the facts:

December 1, 2012, 5:37 pm  

What Defines A Serious Deficit Proposal?  

Paul Krugman, NY Times

Just a thought: if you follow the pundit discussion of matters fiscal, you get the definite impression that some kinds of deficit reduction are considered “serious”, while others are not. 

In particular, the Obama administration’s call for higher revenue through increased taxes on high incomes — which actually goes considerably beyond just letting the Bush tax cuts for the top end expire — gets treated with an unmistakable sneer in much political discussion, as if it were a trivial thing, more about staking out a populist position than it is about getting real on red ink. 

On the other hand, the idea of raising the age of Medicare eligibility gets very respectful treatment — now that’s serious.So I thought I’d look at the dollars and cents — and even I am somewhat shocked. Those tax hikes would raise $1.6 trillion over the next decade; according to the CBO, raising the Medicare age would save $113 billion in federal funds over the next decade. 

So, the non-serious proposal would reduce the deficit 14 times as much as the serious proposal.I guess we have to understand the definition of serious: a proposal is only serious if it punishes the poor and the middle class.

When I saw this article this morning, I burst out laughing.  I have discovered that I am agreeing with Krugman more and more as Republicans and their economists aka lobbyists have gone hard left libertarian with their ideas in order to protect their wealthy donors while ignoring the middle class and poor.

Paul Krugman: GOP Fiscal Cliff Offer 'Pathetic' 

The Huffington Post  |  By Alana Horowitz 

Posted: 12/02/2012 11:08 am EST Updated: 12/02/2012 12:22 pm EST 

Paul Krugman offered a harsh analysis of the Republican plan to deal with the "fiscal cliff."
"This is pathetic – and these people are definitely not serious," he wrote on Sunday.According to Krugman, specifics offered by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell just aren't enough to balance the budget. They also put seniors at risk, he said. 

"What we’re looking at overall is a saving equal to only about one-fifth of what Obama is proposing to raise by higher taxes," he wrote. 

McConnell told the Wall Street Journal on Friday that Republicans are seeking to raise to the Medicare age and modify Social Security. In return, they'd agree to an increase in tax revenue-- but not from higher tax rates. 

Republicans and Democrats are at odds over how to address the fiscal cliff. President Obama has repeatedly pushed for higher taxes on the rich. However, House Speaker John Boehner told 'Fox News Sunday' that negotiations are going "nowhere." Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told NBC's 'Meet The Press' that he expects Republicans to eventually agree to tax increases. 

"The ball really is with them now," Geithner said.

Here are the ten people most responsible for this so-called 'fiscal cliff' -- love the fact that Nutting from Market Watch went after both parties.  He is bi-partisan in criticism but reserves the most blame for Republicans which is where it should be.  He shows this all started with the Clinton years of excess money and the Bush years of tax cuts.  Obama was left to clean up the mess and as he will admit, he could have done a better job.

Today Obama seems to understand what he is doing and will not be snowed again by Congress like he was in 2011.  Most Republicans in the Congress do not have the best interests of the Country in mind but instead what will benefit their huge donors.  Read the details on these people and then understand that greed is a powerful driving factor to where we are today as the wealthy have gotten richer with the Bush Tax Cuts and the Middle Class have taken a real hit with less spending power:

10 people who led us to the ‘fiscal cliff’ 

By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
November 21, 2012 

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — With our political leaders locked in a fiscal struggle that threatens to throw the economy off a so-called cliff and into recession, you might be wondering how we got to this place. 

Remember that this supposed fiscal cliff is the direct result of two contradictory impulses in American life: Greed and guilt. Greed for low taxes, a strong military, a strong safety net and lots of government spending for everyone. And guilt that we weren’t paying our way. Read “Stop calling it a ‘fiscal cliff’” 

Arthur Laffer.  Laffer was the economist who proved the existence of the free lunch. His Laffer Curve showed, in theory, that cutting tax rates would actually increase tax revenue. He gave intellectual cover to those conservatives who wanted to cut taxes but who didn’t want to be seen as contributing to a big deficit. He gave them a guilt-free way to cut revenue.

There’s only one problem: Laffer’s ideas didn’t pan out in practice: Tax cuts don’t pay for themselves. Tax cuts are a major cause of our $16 trillion national debt.

Pete Peterson.  If there’s one person who we can blame for making us feel guilty about the federal deficit, it’s Peterson, a hedge-fund billionaire who was a cabinet secretary in the Reagan administration. Peterson founded, funded or supported most of the institutions in Washington devoted to publicizing the problem of the deficit, including the Concord Coalition, the Peterson Foundation, The Fiscal Times, and the anti-deficit documentary “I.O.U.S.A.”

Without Peterson’s billions and the guilt it bought, the deficit would be a fringe issue.

Bill Clinton. President Clinton made budget surpluses look easy. The budget was in the black the last four years of his administration. What’s worse, he made surpluses look like a sure thing. 

Clinton’s surpluses were partly the result of Washington going on a serious budget diet, with higher taxes paired with moderation in spending. But it was the booming economy — and higher taxes on capital income — that turned the modest deficits of the early Clinton years into surpluses. 

By the time Clinton left office, politicians were beginning to talk about perpetual surpluses, in exactly the same way that hucksters on Wall Street were talking about a perpetual bull market. And with exactly the same outcome. 

Alan Greenspan. Greenspan was a high priest of both guilt and greed. He had always warned Congress about the dangers of the deficits, but his biggest failure as Federal Reserve chairman was the day in 2001 he told Congress that the worst thing it could do was pay down the debt because that would destroy the Treasury market and the Fed’s power to control the economy. 

That was the day he endorsed the Bush tax cuts. The Maestro’s endorsement gave intellectual cover to the conservatives who wanted to cut taxes, but who didn’t want to feel guilty. 

Greenspan also catered to our greedy side as a serial bubble-blower. He inflated the housing bubble in the 2000s by keeping interest rates low and by refusing to regulate the shadow banking system. 

George W. Bush . No one is more responsible for racking up our debt than Bush. He campaigned in 2000 promising to cut taxes in order to avoid paying down the national debt. And when the recession of 2001 arrived, he said tax cuts would revive the economy. And when the economy didn’t revive, he cut taxes some more. Tax cuts for all occasions. And it was all guilt-free. 

Dick Cheney. While Bush was busy cutting taxes, Cheney was busy planning the war on terror. For the first time in our history, we sent our military into battle without raising taxes at home to help pay for it. It added trillions to the debt. 

David Lereah. Lereah was the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors and was perhaps the most enthusiastic and public cheerleader for the housing bubble. Even after the bubble began to deflate, Lereah still insisted that real-estate investments would never lose money. 

Of course, Lereah didn’t cause the bubble all by himself, but he does embody the greed that engulfed the real estate industry, the Wall Street banks that profited from it, and the homeowners who took on more debt than they could ever hope to repay. 

The housing and credit bubble led to the collapse of the financial system in 2008 and was the direct cause of the Great Recession and the ensuing $1 trillion-a-year deficits. 

Grover Norquist. As the head of a powerful lobbying and campaign-finance organization, Norquist forced almost every Republican officeholder to sign a pledge to never raise taxes under any circumstance. If anyone declined to sign or dared to violate the pledge, Norquist would back a primary challenger. The threat worked. 

The Norquist pledge blocked any possibility of a budget deal between Democrats and Republicans over the past two years. Democrats insisted that any plan to balance the budget must include more revenue as well as spending cuts, but Republicans held solid against any tax increase. 

There are signs that Norquist could be losing his hold on the party. Several Republicans won elections this year without signing his pledge, and several incumbents have said they don’t feel bound by the pledge any more. 

Barack Obama. Obama may be the perfect representative of our age, because he encapsulates our national schizophrenia over the budget. He honors both the greed and the guilt. He presided over the largest deficits in history, including a large fiscal stimulus, bailouts of the auto industry, and an expansion of the safety net. 

But Obama also lectures us about the need for the government to tighten its belt, even during a recession. He wants to raise taxes, if only on a few, and he’s expressed willingness to cut into the great middle-class entitlements. It was Obama’s administration that first suggested the bargain in 2011 that created the fiscal cliff. 

John Boehner. The House speaker is trapped in Grover Norquist’s world. He’s a pragmatic legislator who accepts that the government needs more revenue, but his caucus in the House doesn’t agree. In the summer of 2011, Boehner nearly forced the nation to default on its debt because he couldn’t deliver the votes necessary to raise taxes. 

In the end, Boehner was forced to punt the problem down the road. Today’s fiscal cliff showdown is the result of Boehner’s inability to lead the House Republicans to a deal. 

Read more on the Fiscal Cliff at Market Watch 

Time for the American people to rise up with one voice and tell today's Republican Party to quit obstructing and put the American people first over their big donors.  This is the most disgusting group of  Republicans I have seen in Congress.  They are in the hip pockets of the wealthy donors and lobbyists.  How many Congressional Republicans have benefited from the deep pockets of these donors and lobbyists?  It is the only explanation on how they can come to DC as middle to upper middle class and now are multi-millionaires.  What is an insult to my intelligence that they only have to disclose a range of what they are worth?  If we demand to see the income tax returns of our Presidential candidates, why not our members of Congress?

Now would be a good time for an investigative journalist to look into how members of Congress made their millions while saying they were serving the American people.  All I know is that $1 today does not goes as far as it used to in the past.  The cost of almost everything has continued to rise with corporate executives getting richer while the workers get little to no pay increases but the price for what we buy is continuing to go up.  Greed has overtaken Corporate America and some members of Congress.  When a member of Congress retires or is voted out of office, they should not be allowed to be lobbyists.  A member of Congress should also not have his wife as a member of the President's cabinet like Sen McConnell's wife was in the Bush Administration.

Reform is needed from Campaign Finance Reform to reign in secret donations and multi-millionairs/billionairs trying to buy elections to the way members of Congress are paid including benefits to the huge increase in the number of staff in the Congress and last but not least, forbid lobbyists from writing the bills that members submit.  Time for Congress to take the first action and show they are serious about the deficit by cutting their own Houses first starting with their salaries (no raises), their staffs, and benefits.

Remember what is happening right now in Congress by obstructionist Republicans -- start getting involved now in the 2014 electiona to send a message that the American people will not put up with obstructionists tactics and whichever party is in power must work for the American people.  The way this group of Republicans has been acting in Congress, the Democrats deserve to take back the House and see if they can be more responsible.  If they can't, then the American people will vote them out again.   The grandstanding has to stop!  The very idea that McCain, Graham, and Ayotte along with others run out to a microphone to spew their lies has to stop.  The American people deserve better representation then what we have in Congress today.   Time to vote out obstructionists in 2014!

Rich Galen: Step by Step

The only thing we know for sure about this meeting this afternoon is that tax increases are off the table as the House will NEVER vote to increase taxes and from the way Senator McConnell is talking, the votes are not there in the Senate as well.

Treasury Secretary Geithner has made it known he plans on leaving the Government shortly.  Shame he didn't leave sooner although you hate to think who Obama is going to appoint -- could be worse.

Question now is if Obama is going to throw a fit when he doesn't get his way.  We figured that once we had a Republican House he would start acting like a little kid who didn't get his way and took the ball home.  With Pelosi and Reid he had to do little and they were on the firing line.  Now that Obama has to deal with the Republican House and more Republicans in the Senate, he is not doing well.  On July 1st Obama decided to attack Boehner and the Republicans which showed him to be snippy and not willing to accept any blame that only recently he became involved in the talks on the debt ceiling.  Before he was flying around for campaign fundraisers like there were no problems.  Now he wants his way or he will attack.

More and more Americans are seeing Obama as someone who is not up to the task of being President which includes working with both parties.  Obama started off on the wrong foot with his "I Won" remark and it hasn't improved in the months since then.  He still thinks he can dictate whatever he wants and everyone just needs to go along.

Rich Galen has one of the best articles we have read about the process:

Step by StepMonday, July 11, 2011 By Rich Galen 

The highly anticipated Sunday evening meeting to hammer out a deal on the debt limit among the Administration and the Republican and Democratic leadership in the U.S. House and Senate took place and the main result is they will meet again this afternoon at two. 

It is important to remember that these sorts of things are a process. Just as most of us can't go up a flight of stairs in one step from the bottom to the top, a major undertaking like this has to go one - or maybe two - steps at a time. 

While the process of going from one step to the next is going on, it is useful to remember the goal: Get to the top. 

The three major players are the President of the United States, Barack Obama; the Speaker of the House, John Boehner; and, the Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner. 

The supporting cast, Vice President Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi; and the Senate leadership, Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell are on stage, but they are the backup singers doing the whoop-whoops, and the yeah-yeahs, when the musical score calls for them to chime in.
In the audience, prepared to drown out the principals if they don't like the tune, are the 84 Republican House freshmen. 

They were elected in the wake of the thunderous, Wagnerian spending of Obama's first two years and they are not about to go home for the August recess and suffer the slings and arrows their Democratic predecessors had to dodge in August 2009 when they were blindsided by Tea Partiers demanding an explanation of the still unwritten Obama health care plan. 

Speaker John Boehner has been around the track. He's been in the majority and the minority; been a backbencher and been in the leadership. He may not know the exact number of votes he can get on a debt limit deal; but he has a keen sense of where his Conference is heading and it is not heading toward a deal which will include an increase in tax rates. 

The President is in the weaker position. He has to get a deal done because it is the Executive Branch of the U.S. government which has to pay the government's bills. Boehner doesn't have to write a single check. 

There were some, this weekend, who were attempting to find a parallel between the shutdown battle between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich in 1996 and this struggle to find a solution to our debt problems. 

No one thinks this is a test of wills between two egos the size of the Milky Way. This is a battle between two ideologies: Reducing the deficit by increasing the Federal share of income -- increasing taxes; or reducing the deficit by reducing the amount of money the Federal government spends. 

The current issues are not as easy to distill as "Gingrich v Clinton," but given what we're seeing in the European Union: Greece, Ireland, Portugal and this weekend, Italy, how we solve this may be far more reaching not just here, but throughout the global economy. 

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is the comic relief in all this. As we have discussed previously, if he'd stuck to his original estimate that we needed to deal with the debt limit by the end of March, it would have been dealt with. But, to show his Wall Street pals how deft on the debt he could be, he announced we really had until August 2. 

Then, about a week ago, he let it be known that he wanted to return to New York so he became a rare self-made lame duck. That being the case, everyone knows they will have to deal with the next Treasury Secretary and Geithner is reduced to sitting on the floor, cross legged, juggling and doing card tricks to the amusement of the major players. 

Excerpt:  Read More at CNS News

John Boehner closes the deal to avoid government shutdown

This post is dedicated to those in the House and those on the outside that said that John Boehner would not be an effective speaker. I don't know anyone else who could have gotten so many cuts out of the Democrats and avoided a Government shutdown. Some of the loudest voices need to realize that their agenda is not the only one in Congress. Cannot believe some of the statements I read from so-called 'conservatives' that are attacking this bill from the right. I understand the left being mad but once again some members of the right don't know when to stand down and quit expecting everything they want. Like some Democrats they don't seem to care who gets hurt in the process as long as they have 100% victory.

The person who founded the Tea Party Nation wants to run someone against John Boehner because of this agreement. He needs to just that and my old Ohio Congressional District will show him what they think of him and his Tea Party Nation when they return John Boehner to the House in big numbers. The man would rather oust Boehner than Democrats. Says a lot about the Tea Party Nation and its founder.

John Boehner closes the deal to avoid government shutdown 


'It’s a big deal. It shows a great deal of leadership,' said Dave Camp of John Boehner.
AP Photo

By JOHN BRESNAHAN & JAKE SHERMAN | 4/9/11 2:35 AM EDT
They gathered in HC-5 all week talking — sometimes complaining loudly — about where the party was headed in the budget crisis. Many said House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) didn’t share enough information. Others were peeved he wasn’t pushing for deep enough cuts. Some were ready for a government shutdown.

And on Friday night, Boehner himself was unsure what would happen. Halfway through a closed-door meeting of House Republicans, an aide approached Boehner, slipped him a piece a paper, which he read and quickly pocketed.

He then stepped to the podium, and announced what everyone had been waiting for.

“We have a deal,” the Ohio Republican said around 10:30 p.m.

And with that, Boehner had something more — a defining moment in his speakership and a chance to set aside questions about his ability to manage an unwieldy caucus of conservatives, at least for now.

The 61-year-old, swept into the speaker’s chair during last November’s GOP landslide, faced down two Democrats — Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) — and answered doubts from the conservative movement about whether he was a true believer.

His colleagues stood and cheered at his announcement of a deal, knowing Boehner secured more than $38.5 billion in cuts, a far higher figure than many of them expected just days before. Boehner still has to get the votes next week for the long-term budget deal, and he’s got a huge sales job ahead on raising the debt limit, not to mention debating the entire 2012 budget.

“It’s a big deal. It shows a great deal of leadership,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), a Boehner ally. “It’s a big win for the speaker.”

In a larger sense, Boehner has achieved more than just a short-term budget victory — in his first three months as speaker, he’s helped turn the entire Washington dialogue into a debate about the size and scope of government. He started the year by getting rid of earmarks, he’s pushing through some of the deepest spending cuts in American history, and he’ll now try to get most of the GOP Conference on board with Rep. Paul Ryan’s fiscal 2012 budget — one of the most audacious long-term spending plans in recent memory.

All this came together from a politician who was kicked out of leadership 12 years ago and came to the speaker’s job with serious question marks from the right about how he would go about dealmaking with a Democratic president while corralling the 87-strong group of GOP freshmen.

There were only a few wayward critics in the wee hours of Saturday morning — Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) criticized the deal, as well as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who chairs the conservative Republican Study Committee. One tea party leader, Judson Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation, tweeted Friday that Boehner is “selling us out” and he threatened to put up a primary candidate against Boehner.

But several lawmakers and aides noted that when things get heated, Boehner’s demeanor stayed unshakably even. Asked whether he was optimistic as the budget talks stretched into Friday night, Boehner said, “You know me, I was born with the glass half full.”

Boehner also benefited from continuity of message: he said all along that he didn’t want to shut down the government, and he didn’t. He said $33 billion in cuts was too little, despite Obama and Reid saying he had agreed to that number only to renege, and in the final deal he scored nearly $6 billion more in reductions than that. Boehner said policy riders would have to be a part of a final package, and indeed they were.

Excerpt: Read more: Politico.com

Anyone who knows me is well aware of my opinions about some of the national Tea Party leaders -- they have become arrogant and part of the 'my way or no way' crowd which I have always disliked. For once, the Tea Party Express was correct when they said they didn't want a shutdown.

The premise of Americans getting involved in what is going on in Government that started the Tea Party was a great idea but that idea has been co opted by people who want to use for their agenda like running for President. That is just flat out wrong. People need to be encouraged to get involved by honest brokers not people looking to use the Tea Party for their own agenda. We will have more about that in the days ahead as we encourage everyone to get involved in what is happening to try and bring some common sense to the discussion.

Cong Eric Cantor's Leadership Schedule for January 5th, 2011

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5TH


On Wednesday, the House will convene for the start of the 112th Congress at 12:00 p.m. There will be a recorded quorum call at 12:00 p.m. following the Prayer and Pledge of Allegiance. Last votes expected: 4:30 – 5:00 p.m.

Election of the Speaker of the House

Swearing-in of Members and Delegates

H.Res. 5 - A resolution providing for the House Rules of the 112th Congress (Privileged Resolution)

Congressmen Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, and new Budget Chairman Paul Ryan formed Young Guns for the NRCC.  They recruited a lot of the new candidates from across the Country and spent countless hours campaigning for these candidates who will now be sworn in tomorrow as members of the Freshman class of the 112th Congress.  Kevin McCarthy is just one of many rising stars in the House for Republicans -- very impressed with his demeanor and speaking ability.  His tireless campaigning for new candidates has won him wide support from the Republican Caucus.

These three men -- Boehner, Cantor, and McCarthy are well suited to hold the top three positions in the Congress for Republicans.

We wish them well as they begin the tough task of governing to begin to right the ship.  They will need our support and our prayers in the days ahead as they fight the far left liberal agenda from Obama and the Pelosi democrats.  We believe these three and others of the Republican Leadership Team are up the task. 
At noon tomorrow would suggest you turn into CSPAN so you can see Speaker-Elect Boehner elected by the House and the swearing-in of Members and Delegates which will officially commence the new 112th Congress under the new leadership of Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), and Whip Kevin McCarthy from CA.

Enjoy the Weekend! House of Representative Updates.

To recap the last week after Congress returned, Nancy Pelosi was elected as Minority Leader of the House Democrats even though the more moderates went after her. She won by a large margin because Progressives think they lost so many seats because they didn't go far enough. That is an idea that they need to keep pushing into the 2012 elections.

Cong Charles Rangel (D-NY) will be censured by the House but frankly after being found guilty on 10 counts he should have been ousted from his seat. If he had any ethics, he would resign but those words 'ethics' and 'Rangel' are like oil and water.

Now to the Good News of the week!

Republicans look to be picking up another seat as Ann Marie Buerkle in NY-25 has cleared the hurdle of Onondoga County in NY and only votes left to count are absentee in a county where she has her most strength so you can safely chalk up 241 seats for the Republicans. Most of us in our wildest dreams didn't think we would be at 241 and the Democrats at 194 after the election.

On Wednesday, Nov 17, Republicans elected their new Leadership Team:

Speaker of the House: Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)
Majority Leader: Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)
Majority Whip: Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)
Conference Chairman: Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)
NRCC Chairman: Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)
Policy Committee Chairman: Rep. Tom Price (R-GA)
Conference Vice-Chair: Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
Conference Secretary: Rep. John Carter (R-TX)
Freshman Representative: Rep.-elect Kristi Noem (R-SD)
Freshman Representative: Rep.-elect Tim Scott (R-SC)
Rules Committee Representative: Rep. David Dreier (R-CA)
Chairman of the Leadership: Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR)

Congratulations to all the new members of leadership and especially to Speaker-Elect Boehner. We are so happy to see Eric Cantor as Majority Leader and Kevin McCarthy as Majority Whip because along with Paul Ryan, the budget guru, the three of them ran the Young Guns program under the leadership of the NRCC Chair Pete Sessions (R-TX) which helped bring the Republicans all the new faces for the 112th Congress. With the reelection of the NRCC Chair Pete Sessions for another term the Republicans are in the fight for more seats in 2012 with the Young Guns ready to ramp up again. These newly elected Young Guns were prolific fundraisers for their races. It is an exciting time to realize on January 3, 2011, we will have 241 seats in the House versus 194 (tentative) seats for the Democrats.

We hated to see Mike Pence resign as the Conference Chair as he did such an excellent job but he is weighing his options for running for a different office in 2012. We wish him Good Luck in what ever position he chooses to run. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), the new Conference Chair, will do an excellent job as he moves to Conference Chair from Chair of Policy Committee. With two new Freshman, Kristi Noem (R-SD) and Tim Scott (R-SC) on the new Leadership, we expect a lot of new and fresh ideas coming out of this whole group.

Senator John Boehner answers questions about the plane that Pelosi has been using and the direction of the 112th Congress in the latest of his mail bag YouTube videos where he replies to people from his district who have submitted suggestions:




Enjoy your weekend with football or being outdoors in areas where the weather is still fairly warm before the colder temperatures take over.

For those traveling this weekend for the Thanksgiving Holidays next week, have a safe trip!

John Boehner on Lame Duck Session

Republicans Take the House of Representatives with a least a 61-seat pick-up

Some of the pundits today who seem to want listeners to believe they know more than the people who were in charge during this election season and are now wondering less than 24 hours after the election if the Republicans will keep their word. You can take it to the bank when John Boehner gives a promise, he is going to keep that promise. The more I listened on the way back from Oklahoma City tonight, the more I couldn't believe what I was hearing from people on the radio telling us what to think.  Can think very clearly for myself.  For years I have felt that people on the East and West Coast don't have a clue about what makes us in Middle America tick.  Believe it is also true of some of the pundits and describes the disconnect about what they observe and what we do out here.  Those of us in Red State America were so happy this morning to see the maps of victories.  Red State America now surrounds Colorado so you can take it to the bank we are going to be working to bring it back Red.
Been a long time since I have been as proud of a group of people as I have the Republicans in the House these last two years. They were vastly outnumbered, couldn't stop a bill, but they never quit fighting for us, the American people. Vote after vote they might lose a few Republicans but 98% of the Republicans voted in lockstep to try and defeat the lurch toward socialism being carried out by Obama/Pelosi/Reid. When Obama had the summit with House and Senate leaders on Obamacare, the Republicans were the ones with the answers which seemed to infuriate Obama.

We have elected some very good leaders who understand in the House they are there due to the will of the American people as they represent us in the People's House.

The House recruited some AWESOME candidates and the ones that lost for the most part did not lose big except in very Democrat areas. We will challenge some of those seats in 2012 and hopefully win the next time around.  These races were won by the candidates who were willing to work hard and stand on conservative principles. Endorsements are nice but they don't win races -- good candidates do.

It was a great night for Republicans but as John Boehner said last night, it is no time to celebrate when 10% of your fellow citizens are out of work. A recurring theme for Republicans across the Country was it is time to roll up the sleeves, get to work, and get this Country moving forward again. Some of the most uplifting speeches were on the airwaves last night as Republicans who were victorious gave their thanks for the help they received in winning their races and about the job that lies ahead.

This acceptance speech from Senator-Elect Marco Rubio shows the determination these new members of the House and Senate have to make America better for our children and grandchildren:





God has richly blessed this Country and it is up to all of us to support our Representatives, Senators, and Governors in getting America back on the right track.

Fred Barnes: The Five Faulty Theories that Led Obama and Democrats to Disaster

Today while looking for articles about the upcoming election tomorrow, I found all kinds with predictions of what was going to happen on November 2nd. Then I ran across this article from one of my favorites, Fred Barnes, that explained the reasons for the tsunami that is about to hit Democrats tomorrow. It makes perfect sense.

During 2008 campaign, we couldn't believe what we were witnessing as the words of Obama never did match his background but the media went all out for him which will start to cover in the days ahead along with some things that are happening with this President. How he reacts after tomorrow we think we even shock some Democrats. He has never been one to roll up the sleeves and get to work.

Obama is now going to be faced with a new Speaker of the House John Boehner who is one of those roll up the sleeves and get to work people along with Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Mike Pence and other House Republicans. You don't get to where John Boehner is today without hard work and ideas. Like Marco Rubio, he comes from a blue collar family where if you work hard, you can be successful at whatever you do.

That is something Obama has been missing as everything has been handed to him. His surrogates always were able to get other candidates out of the way or make sure every piece of dirty laundry true or not was brought out while covering for Obama. They made sure the members of the media were right there with them in the cover-up of the 'real' Obama.

The American Dream that comes from growing up in mainstream America is not something Obama experienced as a child.  It seems he didn't learn at an early age you have to work for what you achieve because the only thing he has ever worked at is campaigning.  He certainly doesn't work at being President or before that a Senator.  Most of us have faced adversity in our lives and learned to deal with what is handed to us. Obama has been protected by his mentors from learning first hand that you don't always get what you want. He is guilty of thinking he had a mandate for Change but never understood the American people as Fred Barnes has pointed out in his piece today.

Republicans have to remember the same lesson -- the Country is center right and if you govern from center right, everything will be fine but you cannot tilt too far right or they will face a similar backlash. The American people want The People's House back in control of people who understand America and our Constitution and are willing to do what is necessary to preserve our Freedoms. We have watched a group of Republicans led by Republican Leader Boehner, Whip Eric Cantor, and Conference Chair Mike Pence stand up day in and day out for the American people and they never wavered even though vastly out numbered. They kept right on fighting.

Never have been prouder to call myself a Republican then I have these last two years when I have seen how hard the members of Congress have fought for us against all odds. We won the Massachusetts Senate Seat with Scott Brown, then the Virginia and New Jersey Governorships with Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie and the members of the Republican Party became rejuvenated.

Americans for the first time in my lifetime had enough which led to the Tea Party movement which has grown and become stronger because of the leftist, progressive agenda of Obama and the Democrats in Congress.  The media has ignored the fact that a lot of Tea Party people are also the Republican grassroots who form the backbone of most campaigns.  Having the Grassroots involvement doesn't fit the narrative of many media members.  We didn't have the Tea Party in 2004 when the Republican Grassroots rose up here in Oklahoma to work to elected Dr. Tom Coburn to the Senate, but we had those same ideals of the Tea Party they have today. The people fueling Ken Buck's campaign in Colorado are made up with the grassroots along with others who also support the ideals of the Tea Party movement. 

The media has tried their best to define the Tea Party but they don't get it -- the Tea Party is people with the ideals of our Founding Fathers not an 'official' political party as they come from across the political spectrum, from small towns and rural area to large cities. They are united against the path to socialism this Administration and Congress have set us on and on November 2nd, and along with many Americans will speak loud and clear. We want to get America back to the principles of what this Country has been founded on in our Constitution which starts out

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Freedom is a precious gift that was given to all of us by our Founding Fathers and those who fought in the Revolutionary War to secure those Freedoms. This election is about keeping our freedoms and pulling America back from the brink of a socialist path that Obama/Pelosi/Reid have us on today.

Remember November 2nd is the day 'We The People' Take America Back!


Remember November: The Final Act from Republican Governors Association on Vimeo.

The Five Faulty Theories that Led Obama and Democrats to Disaster
12:00 AM, Nov 1, 2010 • By FRED BARNES

The original sin of President Obama and Democrats was their belief in the theory that smashing victories by their party in the 2006 and 2008 elections represented a political realignment that would leave them in power in Washington for decades to come.



As even they should know by now, that theory wasn’t close to being true. A true realignment – and there have been only a handful of them in our history – requires a dramatic shift in the political and ideological leanings of Americans. That hasn’t happened.

The exit polls in the 2008 election and extensive polls since then found that America remains a country with twice as many self-identified conservatives as liberals, while about one-third of Americans consider themselves to be moderates. This breakdown has been the case for years.

The second theory is loosely related to the supposed realignment. It holds that during a serious economic downturn, like the one we experienced beginning in 2008, the public is eager for drastic action by Washington, significantly enlarging the federal government’s role in the economy and in the lives of average Americans. As Michael Barone has noted, Obama and Democrats “acted on this theory,” only to discover that if it was ever operative, it isn’t anymore.

The third theory is also connected to the idea of a center-left nation with faith in the power of government to solve the most difficult problems – a deep recession, for instance. Government spending, widely distributed, would spur demand, cause economic growth, and create jobs. That’s how the theory said things would work.

Thus we got the $1 trillion stimulus (with interest payments included)....

Theory number four grew out of the presidential experience of Bill Clinton. In 1993 and 1994 – his first two years in office – Clinton and his wife Hillary put together a comprehensive health care bill. It never came to a vote. After Democrats were crushed in the midterm election in 1994, the theory arose that the failure to enact the health care measure had caused the defeat, but passage of a health care bill would spare Democrats a similar thrashing this year.

This was always a dubious theory, since crime, a tax hike, gun control, and several other issues played major roles in the Republican landslide in 1994....

Finally, there’s the theory that the president can use the bully pulpit to sell his program to the public. President Obama was regarded as uniquely gifted as a speaker and therefore perfectly suited to using the presidential megaphone to persuade the public. Wrong.

...

Five theories, wrongly believed but aggressively pursued. Obama and Democrats, who think of themselves as the smart ones, should have known better. That they didn’t is likely to translate into disastrous results tomorrow.

Excerpt:  Read More at Weekly Standard