"It stinks!" That was how incoming Speaker of the House Paul Ryan explained the back-room deal hatched by outgoing Speaker John Boehner and Democratic leaders that raised the debt ceiling and put us on automatic pilot to the spending stratosphere through the rest of Obama's term.
Boehner claimed he was "cleaning the barn" before Ryan took control of the House of Representatives – but where is that smell coming from? The entrance to the place is spotless, but the bad odor will linger well after Boehner is gone because of all the brown stuff he piled up in the stalls.
Thanks to Boehner and the Senate's worthless Mitch McConnell, it's Obama who will come out smelling like a rose. The nation is on a collision course with the grim reaper over unrestrained spending, and all the hard decisions have been put off until the next president takes office.
Does anyone seriously think that Paul Ryan's hands are clean? Boehner spent weeks begging Ryan to take the reins of the House. If Ryan had put his foot down and said "No" to this deal, it never would have happened. Instead, Ryan blessed the deal by voting for it, along with all Democrats and a mere 78 of his Republican colleagues.
Just hours before that vote on the budget deal, members of the Republican conference nominated Ryan to be their speaker, leaving members of the House Freedom Caucus, who promised to support him when the full House gathered for the final vote, wondering what happened. For all this talk about "turning the page" and beginning a "new day," this budget debacle is a clear sign that nothing is going to change unless we, the voters, take it upon ourselves to clean this barn.
That's as it should be. Our Founding Fathers wisely left the purse strings in the hands of the House of Representatives because its members represent a much smaller number of people than do U.S. senators. Also, unlike senators, congressmen must stand for re-election every other year. That's so we can hold them accountable – and we must! What good are Ryan and these 78 Republicans? They are traitors to the party and to the next generation who will be left holding the bag for this excess.
What good are those 17 Republican senators
In 2010, Republicans told voters, "Give us the House of Representatives and things will be different." We gave them the House but nothing changed. In 2014, Republicans told voters, "Just give us the Senate and things will be different." We gave them the Senate and nothing changed.
Now they are telling us to give them a Republican president and things will be different. It is little wonder voters aren't buying it. Clearly, we can't keep electing establishment politicians who have never held a real job for very long or at least one that didn't depend on their political connections.
One can only hope that voters will keep their resolve to elect someone president from the real world who will deal with this pack of thieves in Congress head on.
Since 2010, there have been only two worthwhile accomplishments by the Boehner-led House of Representatives: the 2011 budget deal that put some modest restrains on spending and the refusal to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, the poster child for corporate welfare. Last week, Boehner managed to reverse both of these accomplishments.
While most of the House leadership opposed reauthorization for Ex-Im, Boehner quietly encouraged supporters to file a little-used discharge petition, which forced a vote on Ex-Im to the floor. This vote was held Tuesday, Oct. 27, and 127 Republicans voted with all but one Democrat to reauthorize this outdated, wasteful monster.
However, the biggest hypocrite is not in the House of Representatives. It's Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell makes a big show of opposing Ex-Im. However, last summer, he engineered a vote to attach its reauthorization to the highway bill.
Now, he's trying to persuade members of the House to do the same. In other words, he wants to hide Ex-Im in a larger bill and hope voters will not notice that Republicans went along with Democrats to reward their big business cronies.
We're stuck with McConnell for another five years in the Senate, but he should be dumped, as Boehner was, from his leadership post.
Save us from career politicians who are robbing us blind!
Media wishing to interview Jane Chastain, please contact [email protected].
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