Same old.

"We will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone." GOP - Pledge to America

The new congress has been installed and it appears to be serving up the same old crap. The 100 billion dollar budget savings has already shrunk to about 30 billion. New rules that new bills must be balanced with reciprocal reductions in spending have been emasculated by several exceptions the repubs have granted themselves, including those concerning tax cuts and repeal of the Health Care Bill, which the CBO forecasts will add about 230 billion more dollars of debt.

"We will let any lawmaker – Democrat or Republican – offer amendments to reduce spending," the pledge said. "House Democrats have relied heavily on what are known as `martial law' procedures during the current Congress, particularly provisions that allow them to bring any bill to the floor with little or no notice and deny Republican members of Congress or even factions of their own party their right to debate and offer amendments or substitutes for consideration or vote."

The new pledges for "transparency" also ring hollow, since new majority leader John Boehner says that the transparency will be applied at his discretion. Because of this the Health Care Repeal will not be allowed any amendments on the House floor.  Republicans say it deserves an up or down vote.

"I promised a more open process," Boehner said. "I didn't promise that every single bill was going to be an open bill."


Today the House Republicans are doing a bit of grandstanding and reading the Constitution, a process estimated to cost about 1.1 million dollars in U.S. taxpayer money. Well reading most of it anyway, except the part about a black slave being worth 3/5ths of a real person. Or the 18th amendment, which banned the manufacture or sale of alcohol.


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In other news House Republicans blocked a proposal by Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) that would have required all members to disclose whether they are taking advantage of their federal health insurance plan within 15 days of taking the oath of office.


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I think that it might be a short honeymoon.