The Audacity of Speaker Pelosi

As a Representative in Congress, Nancy Pelosi has a California congressional district as her constituency. But as Speaker of the House, she represents the entire United States. In that regard, she owes it to the overall population to show some consideration for what we, the people, want.

The Stimulus America Wants

The American People Want a Stimulus Bill that looks like a stimulus bill:

Build up the Nation’s Roads and Bridges.

Fund Prizes for Green Energy Initiatives, such as solar power and high-mileage vehicles.

Commuter-Rail Projects, prohibitively expensive in the near-term, look like the only control on the cancer-like spread of the automobile. What better opportunity to get these projects underway than at a time when our need for jobs temporarily overshadows our desire to balance the national budget?

These Are Stimulus Programs That Put People to Work, and which will pay off unarguably over the decades ahead.

Why Then Did the Democratic-led Congress put forth a package filled with the kind of things that brought on the Republican revolution in the first place, back in the day?

Speaker Pelosi, Then

In Seeking an Answer to the Partisan Nature of the House’s Stimulus Package, we need look no further than to Nancy Pelosi's behavior during last summer’s wrangling over the TARP bailout plan. Anyone who remembers Speaker Pelosi’s impassioned, anti-Bush Administration speech just before the vote will remember the sense of anger and dismay that her speech created.

There, at a Time When Congress Struggled to set politics aside and unite in a rescue plan for the Nation’s economy, Speaker Pelosi rubbed Republican faces in it. By her speech, she enmeshed a vote for the rescue bill with a vote against the sitting Republican President.

Nancy Pelosi’s Speech Said, in effect, that a vote for the bill was a vote against the President. Small wonder then that the Republicans turned about-face and voted against the bill.

One Would Hope That Speaker Pelosi Would Have Learned Something from That. That maybe her political “tin ear” would have gotten the message.

Speaker Pelosi, Now

But Apparently It Did Not. Speaker Pelosi’s ear remains as tin-filled now as it was back then. For here we are, at the dawn of a new era in American politics, one in which the needs of the American nation are to be served, rather than the needs of the politicians in Washington.

The Bill That the House Just Passed Without a Single Republican Vote has only a small percentage of its costs going to the kind of programs that Americans of both Left and Right can agree on as appropriate to the role government plays in securing our national infrastructure.

Too Many Liberal Programs

But Too Many of the Programs, which stand out in media reports, concern dubious and even controversial programs:

A Program to Assist in Family Planning, including contraception.

A Program to Re-Sod the Capitol Mall, following 1.8 million pairs of feet trod over it for the recent inauguration.

A Program to Fund the National Endowment for the Arts.

What America Needs from Its Government—

People Across America Are Frightened for Their Jobs. Americans are frightened that they may well lose their homes. We are united in a desire to put the resources of government to work at getting us working again.

The American People Are United in a desire to see the new, bi-partisan, post-ideological era of strong government lead us forward into the twenty-first century—

—versus What the House of Representatives Wants

But the United States House of Representatives, under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, wants to rekindle the fires of bipartisan government and Liberal ideology, and lead us back into the swamp again. Both sides of the aisle seem determined to continue the "business as usual" that continually disappoints the potential of the American system of government.

Last Week We Took Aim at the House Republicans, whose blind-siding of the American people displayed a disheartening “Audacity of Disdain” for the wishes of the American people.

Today We Take Aim at the House Democrats, whose attempted hijacking of the anti-Conservative mandate delivered in the last election have now displayed, for all to see, the audacity of the Democrats.

The Audacity of Nancy Pelosi.

The Audacity of Disdain

What Have You Heard from Your Republican Congressman about the stimulus package currently working its way through the Federal government? What doesn't he like? What would he change?

What Conservative Ideal Would He Apply to make this stimulus package better?

What Changes Would It Take, to get your Republican Congressman to Take Action on behalf of the American people?

What Has Your Republican Representative Told You about the failure of Conservative ideology, as evidenced by six years of Republican-controlled government (2001–2007)? As admitted in former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s apology to Congress last Fall?

Let’s Examine These Tenets of Conservative,
Republican Economic Ideology:

If the Great Depression Was Ended by World War II, and not by FDR’s New Deal, why hasn’t the Republican-led War in Iraq boosted the economy this time around?

If Free Markets Do Not Destroy Jobs, but create them, why are all of America’s manufacturing jobs going overseas?

If Free Markets Regulate Themselves, why are so many corporate CEOs giving themselves huge bonuses at a time when their companies are posting record-setting losses, and when bankruptcies are stealing all value from under the noses of their shareholder bosses?

If Tax Cuts Make the Economy Thrive, why has the economy gone to pieces under Republican leadership?

Conservative Economic Ideology Is: Dead

Conservative Ideology as Administered under Our Republican Leaders Has Failed. The Republican leadership offers nothing to replace it. Instead, they line up for photo opportunities with the new President, negotiate changes to the stimulus package—including even more tax cuts—and then brashly vote against it. Unanimously. One and all.

What Do Our Republican Representatives
Offer Us Instead?

The Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives Have Nothing to Offer Us. Or so they would have us believe. And so they thumb their noses at the American people, by grinning big grins while thumbing their noses at the President.

Maybe These Representatives Think it Makes Them Look Good, and tough, and smart, to blind-side America's new President.

The Republican Congressional Caucus Has Nothing Left to Offer America. Instead, its members cleverly stonewall the President, while offering up nothing—not one single new idea—to get the economy going.

Smart? Or Heartless?

Maybe the Republicans Think They Look Smart, standing up there in the Nation's Capitol, thumbing their noses and grinning at their constituents.

Maybe with Their Families Safe and Their Jobs and Houses Secure, they don't have anything more-important to worry about, than trying to undermine the spirit of the American people, by trying to make the President look bad.

But in a Time of National Crisis, There's Nothing Smart or Clever or Funny about standing before the American people, while millions of us are losing our homes and our jobs, and there stand the Republicans in Congress, displaying a heartless audacity of disdain.