Posted by
flagwaver on Monday, April 11, 2011 10:08:22 AM
Speaker Boehner has been catching a lot of flack from the conservative base for his comment that the House of Representatives is only "1/2 of 1/3" of the federal government as set up in the Constitution. He has been laughed at by some and criticized by many, and not without some reason. That statement comes off sounding like a cop-out for when the House GOP doesn't get the results that the base is clamoring for, and even I looked at it that way when I first heard it.
But when you stop to think about the position that the House GOP is in, while they have the power of the purse, that power is severely limited by the way our government is divided. There is no way that the House Republicans, even with a massive majority, can get everything that we in the base would like. Take the budget deal just passed that averted the looming government shutdown; many on the right are excoriating Boehner and company for "selling out" because they were unable to get to the $100 billion in budget cuts they campaigned on. Now, it would have been great to get there, but is it really so bad that we were only able to get to a bit over $60 billion? I mean, the only way to have gotten any higher was to have the Senate on board, and that wasn't happening because the donkeys still run that side of the Hill. Furthermore, shutting down the government would have been a nightmare for the GOP once you know what the White House was planning on shutting down. According to a report at the
American Spectator website, the White House was going to shutter the Smithsonian and its websites, along with any other agencies that dealt with the public in order to create inconveniences that would be dutifully reported...pictures and all...by a complaint news media. And no matter how many of us get our news from the web or FNC, most of the people still get their news from the networks who can still largely shape public opinion.
This isn't meant to make excuses for the GOP, but we can't rush to throw the baby out with the bath water. This isn't all we may have dreamed of, but $60 billion is much better than $0.00. Besides, how much can you expect when you're just 1/2 of 1/3?