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I want to get behind this party, I really do, but it is difficult to get excited about an organization whose every action seems akin to playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded weapon. The Republicans blew an incredible opportunity on Tuesday evening when in their response to the President's speech before Congress, they fell far short of what was desperately needed.
Governor Bobby Jindal who delivered the Republican response, is a capable enough statesman and is well respected in his home state of Louisiana, but his address to the American people was flat and uninspired. When he was done, I didn’t know any more about the Republican position than when he started and in particular, I had no further insight into why this party has so resisted the President's economic “stimulus”
plan. This was the Republican’s chance to connect with the public, to make their case, and to explain why the package is bad for America, line by line, porkchop by porkchop. Instead we got some folksy anecdotes about the greatness of America and a lame story recounting how ridiculous federal regulations impeded water rescues during the Katrina disaster. Many say that Jindal is the presumptive 2012 Republican candidate for President. If so, the Party did him no favor by having him follow Obama’s typically persuasive and moving oratory. Considering the historic moment of a black President addressing Congress, within the environment of majority approval by both the Congress and American people, this move was nothing short of throwing him under the bus.
The person who should have been delivering the opposing viewpoint is Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). After all, he has been the point man against the “stimulus” package all along, and although it’s not likely anyone has read all 1079 pages, Boehner is probably more familiar with all the dubious provisions than anyone else. As a speaker, he is forthright and eloquent, and easily could have offered up a point by point rebuttal of Obama’s assertions. Admittedly, Boehner has said that he agrees with many of the
President’s points in principle, so the tactic here should be to ask the question, “Where do we get the money to pay for it all?” No one, from the President to the Treasury can say where adequate funding is going to be found. The Republicans, if they want to reach the American people, must continue to hammer on the issue of fiscal responsibility. They must remind everyone that it is impossible to tax the wealthy enough to cover it all, and soon the tax increases will, by necessity migrate to lower brackets. They also need to remind the reasonable among us, that Democrats are trying to make up for lost time by floating a new spending bill containing over 9,000 earmarks, apparently attempting to fund in one month, all the programs that President
Bush denied them for eight years. If the Republican party wishes to be anything more than a side note to the history of the next four years, they need to dump the tired rhetoric about big Government, entitlements and all the social gimmes in the “stimulus” package. Instead, they would do well to remind everyone where money must ultimately come from to finance all the “feel good” and special interest legislation. That is just common math. You can print it on a page or write it on a chalkboard for all to see, and the message is compelling. They also need to resist the urge to spin the revolver and put it to their head, by sacrificing their future talent in front of a national audience that is still basking in the afterglow of their collective encounter with "greatness”. In short, Republicans have got to resist their overpowering urge to self destruct.
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