John Fund reports in the Wall Street Journal today about the sneaky tactics employed by Nancy Pelosi and company to "grease the wheels" for greater government spending. Contrary to Pelosi's past calls for reform, now that she has the power, she's using it to the max to beat down her fiscally conservative opposition. And she's also taking actions to keep Democrat shenanigans hidden from public view.In the new rules, term limits for committee chairmen are gone. So too are cost containment measures on Medicare. So too is the ability of a Congressman to make a motion to edit out any spending increase without making up for the "lost revenue." So too is the century old "motion to recommit" which responsible Republicans had to use 50 times in the last Congress as they tried to check runaway spending.
Furthermore, the new Democrat bullys have changed the rules making tax cuts much harder to win. Says Fund, "The new rules will mean that the only way to push for a tax cut will be to propose a tax increase elsewhere."
"All those nice pro-life, gun-owning young Democrats recruited to run by Rahm Emanuel will never have any real influence now," says Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform. "They were useful in getting Democrats a majority but now they'll be in the back of the bus."
Fund concludes, "Barack Obama ran for president pledging to end needless partisanship and to create "a new politics." He is at least making a stab at that by appointing a couple of cabinet members with Republican ties and consulting with GOP Congressional leaders. It's unsettling that his fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill seem intent on marching in a completely opposite direction."
