Democrat House Speaker Pelosi Breaks Contract With America: Looks To Change House Rules To Curb Minority Party’s Power By Rob

Source: http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/pelosi_looks_to_change_house_rules_to_curb_minority_partys_power/

January 3, 2009 at 08:16 am

And she wants to end term limits for committee chairs too.

As late as October Nancy was telling us that a larger Democrat majority in the House would make that branch of government more bi-partisan.

“Elect us, hold us accountable, and make a judgment and then go from there. But I do tell you that if the Democrats win and have substantial majorities, Congress of the United States will be more bipartisan,” said Pelosi.

Looks like by “more bi-partisan” she meant “we’ll marginalize the other party so they can’t do anything.”

An early partisan skirmish is likely in the House next week, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to move a rules package that would curb the GOP’s ability to derail legislation through a parliamentary maneuver it has used over the past two years.

Democrats may also end the current three-term limit for committee chairmen — a limit adopted by Republicans when they took over the House in 1995 and retained in the House rules adopted by Democrats when they regained the majority in the 110th Congress.

Not surprisingly, the move to limit the House minority’s ability to bring motions is all about making it easier to vote through tax hikes:

GOP aides complain that the possible limit motions to recommit would take away the minority’s ability to attack tax increases in must-pass bills. That’s because the pay-as-you-go budget rule, which is likely to be renewed, does not allow amendments or motions to recommit forthwith that would remove any of the offsets it requires in legislation.

The pay-as-you-go rule requires that all new entitlement spending or new tax cuts be offset with equivalent spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere.

I’ve said for a long time that pay-as-you-go was essentially fake fiscal conservatism.  On paper it certainly sounds like responsible budgeting, but all it does is make spending easier while tax relief is all but impossible.

But what’s interesting is how, upon achieving power, Democrats lose all pretense of the bi-partisanship they promised on the campaign trail.  Now I, frankly, am not particularly interested in the parties working together (that’s usually bad times for the taxpayer) but the Dems made the promise.  You’d think they’d be honest enough to follow through.