Category — U.S. House

 

Boehner: Republicans need to make sacrifices

White Sulphur Springs, W. Va. — House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) challenged House Republicans to make a few sacrifices in the next year that will help the GOP sell their agenda to voters in the fall elections. [snip]

The reform proposals include a one-year moratorium on earmarks for all Republicans, the creation of a special panel to review the process, including the abuses that have occurred, and a litany of smaller guidelines to curtail wasteful earmarks or member-requested projects that benefit campaign contributors or other private entities. [snip]

“With all this happening in their daily lives, they’re watching the news — and they see politicians in Washington WASTING their money. While families are struggling to make ends meet, they look up and see politicians using taxpayer money to build monuments to themselves … funding hippie museums … letting entitlement spending spiral out of control. ” [snip]

“In 1994 we made sacrifices. We gave up perks. We gave up privileges. We took risks. We thought big. We rolled dice. We need to go through this process today and tomorrow with the same mentality.”

“If we woke up suddenly tomorrow and found ourselves in the majority, would we be any different? How would we be different from the Republicans of the past AND the Democrats of the present? If we can’t answer these questions for Americans over the course of the next year, we will stay in the minority. ”

“If we’re going to pick up seats in 2008, we have to strike a chord in the hearts of the American people — our base, and Republican-leaning independents alike. We cannot win by singing the same old tune. Washington is broken. We need to give the American people reasons to believe we’ll fix it. ”

“We’re not starting from scratch. We had a good year last year. In 2006 we warned the American people a Democratic Congress would be like this: a majority devoted to higher taxes, bigger government, and retreat. In 2007 we gave the American people reasons to believe we were right. We showed that the Democrats are exactly who we thought they’d be. This is something we can build on. Our challenge in 2008 is to give Americans reasons to believe we’ll be different. ”
[snip]

The mushrooms are full, Boehner. Take your tales of weeping and woe away. If the Donks took complete control of congress and the presidency, we would be in the same fiscal condition and slightly more Balkanized.

This came through after I put the post together. Sum up what the RINO’s feel they need to do!

House GOP shelves earmark moratorium plan

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. – House Republicans stopped short of imposing a yearlong moratorium on their earmarks Friday and instead called on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to establish a bipartisan panel to work on reducing “pork-barrel spending.”