A conservative friend of mine, who remains an avid Herman Cain supporter, recently bemoaned via Twitter, “Conservatives seem to be lost. We throw Cain over the cliff, embrace Newt. Something is wrong.” My response tweet came quickly. “Conservatives aren't lost. They got mugged by Bush/Cheney and let the Tea Party phonies in the House. It's tough.” It is also cynical and two-faced, epitomized by the House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia.
According to the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives, since the 19th 
Century the majority leader is the officer “charged with scheduling legislation for floor consideration; planning the daily, weekly, and annual legislative agendas; consulting with Members to gauge party sentiment; and, in general, working to advance the goals of the majority party.” The purpose of having such an officer is to “expedite legislative business and to keep their parties united.”
Cantor has done little to expedite legislative business and done even less to keep his party united.
In 2010 the House Majority Leader went about recruiting most of the Tea Party backed freshmen who claim to be conservatives. Although Cantor is attempting humanize his image and present himself as more reasonable, such as the recent fluff piece on 60 Minutes, it does not change the fact that he has lead the obstructionism in the House and fractured its leadership.
Cantor told Politico, “the most important issue facing the people that sent us to Washington, and that is how do we help small businesses create jobs.” That is not what the record shows. Creating jobs has been House Republicans’ last priority. Here is the short version of the 112th Congress’ numbers for their 2011 agenda:
14 Votes to repeal patient health care protections
10 Anti-Consumer votes
7 Votes to keep unnecessary subsidies for Big Oil companies
4 Votes to restrict women’s access to health care
3 Votes to end Medicare
3 Votes to roll back workers’ rights
0 Comprehensive jobs bills
Article comments
1 - jamminsue
Thanks, Tommy
2 - Glenn Contrarian
'Compromise'? What are you? A tree-hugging communist/Nazi/anarchist baby-killer????
3 - Igor
Good article Tommy.
4 - Cannonshop
Yes, raise the debt ceiling so that when it's so deep your great-grandchildren are forced to default, we'll have money that makes the Zimbabwe dollar look stable and valuable.
The first step to stopping the bleeding is to stop the bleeding, until spending is reined in and we stop expanding the credit-limit, more revenues will just be used to increase the amount of debt owed.
What you're missing, Tommy, in this piece, is that those "Protesting" evil Freshmen are doing this, because the status-quo "experienced" pols have mortgaged your GRANDKIDS' future, and they're working on the GREAT-Grandkids, to pay for the whims and guilts of the present-at some point, you have to STOP piling on, and start cutting.
5 - Tommy Mack
We had this argument and Congress caved. Cutting and austerity for the sake of the unborn may be rhetorically plausible but they fail to achieve the stated objective in practice. The vote against something that has already been approved is a symbolic gesture, something great for a couple of minutes on CSPAN. It is also symbolic of the majority party putting its self-interest ahead of the country’s best interests.
Tommy
6 - Cannonshop
Of COURSE it's an empty gesture, Tommy-every congresscritter in office stays in office by doing what?
Bringing Home the Pork.
This is why there will be no cuts-even though we desperately need them, and why "Cuts" that do get passed, usually cover about a fraction of one percent of the rate of expansion in spending, instead of stabilizing it where it is at so that the economy can catch up.
WE aren't going to see serious stabilization efforts in Congress any time soon-if at all, we might see it when debt-service is equal to, or slightly exceeds, the GDP of the nation as a whole-because at that point, the whole thing WILL collapse, debt-ceiling increases or not.