Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Yell at them

Sent this to John Boehner:

Thanks to the work of many people we achieved the biggest swing in the House in 60 years. The question to be answered now is: so what? The overall result has been is no appreciable difference in how Congressional business is conducted. This is from an AP article:
Obama has his Departmental Secretaries “reaching out” to the Republican incoming committee chairs and at least one of chairman has already been impressed by this effort.
“It’s very smart,” said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the incoming chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, of the White House outreach. … Mica met with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former House Republican colleague. "I know Ray and I have a lot of confidence in dealing with him.”
The day after meeting with Mica, LaHood announced that the Transportation Department will kick in an additional $342 million for SunRail, a commuter rail project for central Florida strongly backed by Mica... Florida is expected to be a key battleground in Obama’s 2012 reelection run.

This is the same type of earmark (bribe) as the one Landrieu got to vote for Obamacare and is exactly the type of thing we were all motivated to end.

The first positive action that could have been taken was the appointment of chairs that actually understand what happened in November. These appointments could have meant something; certainly more than the symbolic, non- binding, voluntary pledge to end earmarks. But we got the symbolism, a liberal dose of seniority, and no real action. Half of the incoming House committee chairmen do not deserve their positions by any rational evaluation of their past actions vs. the November results. The new Majority Leader in the House is allowing business to be conducted in ways that are indistinguishable from his predecessor. But you keep saying, even in the face of actions like Mica's, that everything is changed.
A repeat of the disastrous display by the 2000-2006 Republican Congress will lead to the collapse of Republican Party as a national option. The motivation to volunteer/donate in the political process is not to elect the lesser of two evils.

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