Why should we trust them again?

House minority leader John Boeher was on Michael Medved's show today. In response to a caller's question, Boeher said that the the GOP did indeed have a health care proposal. He gave the URL where it was posted.

REALLY??? I'll bet that most people have no idea that the GOP has a health care plan. Of course Boehner didn't articulate AT ALL what was actually in the plan.

Reagan and Gingrich understood something that Boehner doesn't -- being shy and keeping things quiet is NOT how one wins in the marketplace of ideas.

The sad fact is that the current GOP members in Congress lack the kind of great leadership and communication skills that they had in the 1990s under Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, and Bill Archer. Not only did those guys accomplish a lot (welfare reform, capital gains tax cut, balanced budget, etc), they also set the stage for what would happen when the GOP took control of the Presidency. I remember the big debates between Armey and Archer on how they would scrap the current tax code in favor of either a flat rate income tax or a national sales tax. Even "moderates" like Pete Domenici (R) and Sam Nunn (D) came up with their own version of radical tax reform (a “consumption-oriented” income tax).

ALL reform (let alone talk of even more radical reform) died in January 2001 when George Bush became President. Instead, George Bush and Karl Rove tried to emulate the Democrats by buying votes with the first new entitlement program since LBJ and the largest federal intrusion into the classroom in history. It didn't work and they got booted out of office. Boehner was part of the mess that Bush made.

The result was inevitable -- the Democrats now control the federal government and are doing everything possible to make it even larger.

I am so VERY happy that Scott Brown won in Massachusetts. It signals that virtually everyone except the most brain dead socialist is waking up to reality. However, this doesn't mean that we should automatically trust John Boehner and the Bush GOP sell-outs again. We need to take it candidate-by-candidate and really take a hard look at whether or not they going to return power to the people or continue to consolidate government in the hands of a few elitists.