Erick Erickson's Blog, page 13

Hey House Republicans, Here’s What Obama is Saying Today

As Chad Pergram notes on twitter, Ed Henry reports the White House is calling getting the GOP to break its tax pledge, “One of the most consequential policy achievements of the last couple of decades.” See how this is already being spun. Do you really want to do this? You have a choice. Oppose this deal. It does nothing to solve our problems. It does | Read More »

Conservatives Should Kill This Deal

Conservatives within the Republican Conference should kill the compromise plan for the fiscal cliff. For years, squishy folks on both sides and lots of think tankers have told us that we needed a “balanced” approach to solve our debt and deficit problems. A “balanced” approached included both tax increases and spending cuts. In other words, a “balanced” approach looked a lot like the so called | Read More »

Hollywood Hypocrisy on Guns

If you didn’t know, Hollywood has yet again sprung into action producing an “all hip celebrities on deck” ad demanding gun control. I’m sure Washington will take it as seriously as the last one. In any event, via Brad Thor’s twitter feed, I see that someone has put together a genius though not safe for work, video that puts all these do gooder celebrities calling | Read More »

Just Do It

One of the biggest problems on Capitol Hill these days is that the leaders of both parties are calling all the shots without input from the rest of Congress until the end. Certainly there comes a point when there are too many cooks in the kitchen, but the purpose of the legislature is to legislate and the legislators cannot do their job because of their | Read More »

Just How Badly John Boehner Played His Hand

I talked to two congressmen who were not involved in the purge or victims of it. They both said that seeing House leaders back “squishes” during the primaries including against some incumbents and then seeing them throw conservatives off committees was all they needed to strengthen their spines against the Speaker. They said they’re happy to be team players, but they think conservatives in the | Read More »

Stop Pretending We Can’t Disagree on This

Not a day goes by that I am not forced to confront the idea that I could be wrong about a lot, including the notion of going over the fiscal cliff. The problem is that a lot of Republicans, including most of the conservative press out there jockeying for access in the Speaker’s Lobby, have so thoroughly drunk the kool-aid (yes, I know it’s flavor-aide | Read More »

Here

On Christmas Day of 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned the poem “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” His oldest son had been badly wounded in the Civil War the prior month and Longfellow’s wife had died in an accidental fire. Among the lines were these: And in despair I bowed my head;
”There is no peace on earth,” I said;
”For hate is strong,
And mocks the | Read More »

Plan B Aborted

John Boehner proceeded with Plan B and gave neither assurances nor reassurances that he would fight for meaningful spending cuts or entitlement reforms. He asked Republicans to give up the last plank in their party they had not surrendered in the name of big government without getting anything meaningful from the Democrats. In short, John Boehner has spent two weeks negotiating with himself, ending what | Read More »

URGENT: Last few hours to stop the Boehner Tax Hike

Later today, the House of Representatives will vote on a major tax increase. This disastrous idea is being pushed by Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor and will do nothing other than put Republicans on record supporting tax increases that should be the sole responsibility of President Obama. Fortunately, groups like Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America are opposing the bill. | Read More »

Oppose Plan B

Republicans in Congress intend to vote today on Plan B, John Boehner’s fall back plan on the fiscal cliff. The President says he will veto it. In other words, the Republicans are going to go on record that they will sell out their last remaining principle — no tax increases — and get nothing from the Democrats in return. Nothing. There’ll be no Democrat deal | Read More »