John Boehner and the Tea Party

So John Boehner has chosen the the most obvious of newspapers for a Republican backed by the usual coterie of Big Business, Big Insurance, Big Oil and Big Banking-the WSJ- to flash his Tea Party credentials.

Given that he has been a member of Congress since 1991 his little preamble is sweet, but so is saccharin. His initial interest in politics came from seeing "firsthand how government throws obstacles in the way of job-creation and stifles our prosperity".

That's why he approved $9.8 trillion dollars in President Bush's budgets.

Now he's got religion, or at least has woken up and smelled the tea.

He outlines his "to do" list as Speaker of the House. Top of the list, pork. So he will remove all earmarks. So did Sarah Palin, while she shovelled it in so it will be interesting to see how he fares.

He will let Americans have 3 days to read all bills before they are brought to a vote. One of those great offers with little real value. By the time a bill has been published, if you actually take the time to read it, you will be too late to do anything about it-even if you wanted to. Otherwise there are numerous website that publish bills if you really want to find pork.

Then there will be no more "comprehensive" bills, and no more bills written behind closed doors. Comprehensive bills are "those with thousands of pages of legislative text that make it easy to hide spending projects and job-killing policies". I guess it's easy when all you write on the bill is "No". Otherwise, I should hope that bills are comprehensive-i.e. complete!

But my favourite is the call to insist that every bill include a cause citing where in the Constitution Congress is given the power to pass it. I am truly interested to see what bills have been passed that the Republicans think were outside of Congress's Constitutional remit.

I have to assume it that the never ending debate over State's rights versus Federal Rights is at the top of it, and everything else follows from there.

We need to combat the misplaced use of the "Don't Tread on Me" motto with "United we stand, Divided we Fall".

But that would require a rational debate in the US which has to be an oxymoron for the Tea Party.