Monday, February 06, 2006

Same Old, Same Old


New House Speaker John Boehner took steps to put the kibosh on the broth-thin "reform" proposal of Dennis Hastert while he waits to propose an even weaker plan of his own. It seems that Hastert's ban on lobbyists gifts and trips were not acceptable to the Republican rank and file. Now it looks as if the R's are headed off to the Maryland shore for a beach party to rework the plan.

Jonathon Weissman's article in the WaPo quotes a senior Republican aide:
"This is something we refer to as a false start," a senior aide said,
acknowledging that Hastert and other leaders had backed the Republicans into a
no-win situation. The leaders can either push forward with a plan most
Republicans oppose, or they can scrap it and read that they backed off the
toughest reform proposals.

Failure to address this problem will be tantamount to feeding it. The longer it goes on the harder it will be to fix. Mark Green supported Boehner on both ballots last week. Now let's see if he goes along on the beach party.

1 comment:

Walton said...

"Now let's see if he goes along on the beach party."

I have no doubt he can snag some free tickets to that one!