Vernal Equinox brings conservative resurrection hopes for Republican Party courage to shut down the government after Campaign 2012 GOP autopsy.
If there is one lesson this tea partier conservative learned from the re-election of President Barack Obama that we never expected to see, it is that Republicans can not count on a majority of voters to hold Democrats responsible for the failed results of their economic policies.
Despite the dearth of any GOP votes in Congress to inflict Obamacare upon the American people and the 2010 landslide that restored Republican control of the House; Florida, Colorado and Ohio electorate memories faded when bombarded with Bain-ful attacks targeting the top of the 2012 GOP ticket.
Enter the junior senator from the Lone Star state and let the re-branding begin:
When the U.S. Senate…takes up the continuing resolution to fund the federal government for the remainder of fiscal year 2013, Sen. Ted Cruz (R.-Texas) will offer an amendment that will prohibit funding for the implementation of Obamacare during that period.
“I believe we will have a vote on this amendment and I have said I am willing to employ any procedural means necessary to ensure that we do get a vote on the amendment,” Cruz told reporters…
Cruz, who favors total repeal of Obamacare and has introduced legislation to do that, said in a conference call on Monday that at a minimum Obamacare should not be implemented until Gross Domestic Product has started growing at its average post-World War II level or better.
“The historic levels of growth have been 3.3 percent and, in my view, at a minimum, we should see a return to those historic levels of growth before Congress is willing to contemplate putting through another massive burden on the economy that hurts productivity and kills jobs,” said Cruz.
The Republican-controlled House [already] passed its version of the CR… But the Republican leaders of that chamber did not put language in their bill to defund Obamacare or any part of it…
To add insult to self-inflicted Republican brand injuries, Speaker John Boehner this week agreed with President Obama that the national debt is not yet an “immediate” crisis. Never mind the ongoing anemic recovery unworthy of the name and a work force still smaller than the one Obama inherited from his predecessor, but did the Speaker miss the news about America’s first in its history credit rating downgrade?
But of course, if Boehner were to agree that a crisis exists now, he would be required to take bold (and inherently risky) action now. So instead of mustering the courage to address actual crises that have been and continue to cause economic suffering on a scale not seen across the Fruited Plain since Okies were force-fed grapes of wrath, we continue to let Democrats and their Media Branch to concoct faux crises that prevent elementary school children from touring the White House. Does Boehner not see the electoral risks of cowardly inaction since he remained Speaker after the Election of 2012? And yet, he still refuses to exercise what power can be wielded from that office.
We do not advocate games of government-shutdown chicken lightly (especially with such a crisis-welcoming executive like Obama serving as chief) and we would not demonize fellow Republicans that define responsible governance as authorizing the funding (albeit via Bernanke’s funny money) of laws passed by Congress (even if done contrary to then-existing Senate rules); but the 5-year and counting PRESENT economic crisis calls for at least one man with courage to make a majority for reversing course before the Democrats next tax hike resembles a Cypriot reverse bank robbery.
It would be folly to shut down the government over Paul Ryan’s plan to balance the budget in ten years, so economically illiterate are swing voters in northern Virginia (not to mention how large a 2023 Ryan federal government would remain). But surely it is worth the risk, especially given the prospect of four more years of Democratic budgetary irresponsibility, for the GOP to try and brand itself as the party seeking to save Americans from 23 new Obamacare taxes, higher health insurance premiums, demotions of employees from full-time to part-time to avoid employer coverage mandates and all the other evils of the Orwellian-titled Affordable Care Act that polls show is very unpopular.
March (to the Final Four in Atlanta) Madness has lost some of its allure this year not only because of the ongoing one-and-out-t0-the-NBA trend and the nearly irrelevant NCAA men’s basketball regular season, but also because of the January-December madness we have witnessed in Washington, D.C. for the last four years.
But with the Rand Paul drone-filibuster and the Ted Cruz Obamacare-repeal challenge leading to today’s Vernal Equinox and the official beginning of Spring, hope springs eternal that conservatives could once again, act like conservatives.
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
