GOP Pledges Tax Cuts and Budget Caps
Politico reports:
House Republicans are set to release on Thursday a "Pledge to America," an ambitious and sweeping set of proposed changes to domestic and security policy, including promises to freeze most federal government hiring, cut Congress' budget, place hard caps on domestic spending accounts, prevent the phase-out of tax cuts that are set to expire in 2011 and "repeal and replace" the new health care law.
Many of the reforms envisioned by House Republicans are highly unlikely ever to become law, but others foreshadow tough fights with President Barack Obama's administration over spending, taxation and national security policy if Republicans win control of the House in November's mid-term election. Another set would require simple changes to House rules.
Republicans plan to unveil the Pledge to America — a much more comprehensive agenda than the 1994 Contract with America — at a hardware store in Sterling, Va. on Thursday. Politico reporters viewed a draft of the 20-plus page manifesto Wednesday afternoon.
Republicans are holding a conference meeting late Wednesday to discuss and approve a final version of the agenda.
Democrats already are calling Republicans' plan warmed-over stew, and many of the proposed reforms are already embodied in legislation that has been introduced in the House or espoused by House GOP leaders.
The presentation includes graphs on the economy, as well as quotations from Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and former presidents Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy.
The plan is divided into five parts: spending, jobs, government reform, national security and health care.
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