Redstate

"Unfortunately for Blunt, he has also played a role in medicare, no child left behind, earmarks, and many of the other problems conservatives see as necessitating change. That is a fair statement."

It's not, really. Bush played a much larger role in these things. Presumably you will be calling for him to step down in favor of Cheney soon. The Senate leadership played a larger role than Blunt. I wait patiently for calls for all the GOP Senate leadership to be purged.

This campaign to pillory the House GOP leadership is senseless and probably counter-productive.

he's corrupt.  Cheney's corrupt.  Denny's corrupt.  Beat the drum guys!  Hang'em all!!!

HRC for President

Guys, have we lost our minds???

I get heated from time to time and I think we need to embrace reform - and now.  but lets to shred all the candidates to pieces every second of the day.

good to see pence finally coming out for js (because few have had the courage to do so) instead of all the backstabbing and behind closed doors talk, talk, talk.

this slash and burn crap doesnt help anyone excepts Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton etc etc etc

We made our displeasure known about Bush.  We have criticized Frist and urged his replacement.  And just because others are more culpable does not mean we should not challenge a guy who has an election before him.

Shadegg, by the way, did not vote for medicare.

This is a discussion about a Congressional leadership post.

If you think bringing up President Bush is relevant to that, I urge you to read the United States Constitution at some point.  In particular, note in Article I and Article II the creation of the Congress and the Presidency as independent bodies.

The Congress has power on its own.  In particular, the House of Representatives has the sole authority to originate spending bills.  Passing the buck to the President just won't do.

.. and I disagree.

"But he is also part of a Republican establishment that talks a good talk in guarded language while failing to walk the walk that would reassure the base."

Somebody explain to me how we benefit from taking the Democrats "culture of corruption" molehill and converting it into a mountain.

Do people here seriously believe that the MSM are suddenly going to stop running hit pieces on Republicans accusing them of unethical behavior if some reforms are made?

but its the way that its done. That is all.

Bottom line is that there is tons of frusteration about where the party is going, where congress is going, where the president is going and what is all means.

there is also tons of frusteration about where is all of the support.  why is shadegg still in single digits?  that will hopefully soon change.

but ripping down blunt and ripping down boehner aint the way to do it.

I sense that this frusteration is just starting to

turn to venom and that does not do us any good come Feb 3.

deathly afraid of us pushing reform and fixing things ourselves effectively taking the air out of the Corruption balloon that they need to use in this election cycle

No! The MSM won't just stop running those pieces but the counter argument of "yes but we fixed that" will render them null and void  

I agree with the main thrust of your post, but this part:

the House of Representatives has the sole authority to originate spending bills

is not entirely accurate. As I wrote in another thread, from Article I of the Constitution:

All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives

That's revenue (ie taxation), not spending.  From the House Rules website,

Although the Constitution designates the House as the House of Revenue, meaning revenue bills must originate in the House, there is no similar requirement enumerated for spending bills. However, by tradition Appropriations bills originate in the House.

So, your "sole authority" is actually just "tradition".  However, I believe that the tradition has not been violated in recent congresses -- so your point concerning the House's responsibility for our current budget mess independent of the President's actions is still germane.

You got me.

Roy Blunt Has Disqualified Himself as Majority Leader of the House

You're right that the Democrats and the MSM probably aren't going to vary their criticism of the GOP House (much) if they do pass some substantive (as opposed to symbolic) reforms.

So what.

We should do it because it's the right thing to do in principle and good public policy.

And IMO the politics will take care of itself because it will (a) motivate the GOP base in 2006 if we believe that this represents a change of direction from how Congress has done business (without having to hold our noses and vote for the lesser of two evils) and (b) will also make independents/swing voters more likely to support pro-reform Republicans rather than Democrats who would rather whine about a "culture of corruption" than actually do something about it.

there is no "culture of corruption". The thing is a myth which the media have fabricated. And which many Republicans have decided to believe in for reasons of their own.

Being in a leadeship role in the House is a tough job. If Shadegg is unable to win it for himself without the blogs carrying him, then it's unlikely that he will suddenly morph into a great leader afterwards.