Quote of the Day:
“It’s equivalent of a new football coach; you don’t have to get rid of the whole team if you’ve got a new coach. You’re going to have to have a few plays, new ways of doing things.”
— Rep. Jack Kingston, Georgia Republican and Appropriations committee member, on the substantial holdover of professional staffers on the panel despite the change in party control
Page A3 Washington Times January 10, 2011
On a political panel last weekend, the moderator asked everyone in the room to self-identify political leanings. Then she said it would “be fun” if we all “pretended to be the opposite.” Luckily, the first comment from a current Congressman destroyed the myth that he would be anything but an authentically a misguided liberal. No one else played the moderator’s game.
Politics is too serious to equate to a game. When the Republicans took over the House in 1994, Rep. Bob Livingston also kept the Democratic staff . Congress would not even interview Bush budget staff from the Secretary of the DoD, saying that no one had the experience of the current (Democratic) Appropriations staff. That is correct — no one knows how to spend money faster than liberal majorities, then or now. Republicans didn’t deserve to stay in power then and they are making the same critical mistake now.
Republicans have never actually cut spending .. they’ve simply slowed the rate of growth of Democratic spending. The majority of Americans just voted to actually cut not just the exponential growth of government but actual spending. Our last best hope is the US House. To have the advice and counsel of Democratic Appropriations staffers is a travesty to anyone who worked in the last election or who understands this budget crisis.