Good Advice!
By I sure hope the GOP listens to Ed Morrissey:
Did the House GOP caucus take a hard line on pork-barrel spending or adopt policies to cut federal spending? No. Republican voters and conservative pundits begged the House and Senate caucuses to make dramatic breaks with the previous six years and adopt real conservative policies of fiscal responsibility and federalism. What did they do? They offered to stop earmarking only if Democrats followed suit, a deal everyone knew would never take place. Instead of appointing one single anti-pork activist to the House Appropriations Committee in Jeff Flake, they appointed Joe Bonner, a good Congressman but a well-known earmarker, and mostly because Flake’s anti-pork crusade irritates his colleagues.
I agree this is a great idea. Making clear that upper-class tax cuts and perpetual trillion-dollar war mean serious cuts to programs that people like: definitely something the GOP should campaign on, and vigorously. Don’t kid yourself, the public is just as concerned with earmarks as conservative bloggers, follows decisions about who should head the Appropriations Committee very closely and in particular you have to think that ensuring that members of Congress can’t bring back any funding to their districts will help them enormously in re-election battles. I also have to strongly recommend that the GOP structure its appeal to the phone booth where all of the principled supporters of “federalism” are currently meeting. I suggest that they start by repealing the “Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act,” which I’m sure will be strongly supported by the anti-choicers deeply committed to “returning abortion to the states.” This is pure gold!