Before you get too excited with the Republican wave, a blast from the past.

The Republicans are coming, the Republicans are coming!   Everyone hide!   It seems like the impending Republican wave is going to hit America tomorrow evening like a tsunami straight out of hell.  People are cheering and dancing in the street, finally, no more spending, no more Pelosi and no more liberal agenda.  Yeah, not so fast.  Beyond the inevitable frustration that will be the lame-duck session of Congress, there is the little issue of Republicans and their promises. 

Actually, there are two issues.

Issue number one.  The current Republican leadership is inept.  There, I said it. Inept.  By and large the Boehner, Cantor, Ryan coalition in the House and the McConnell Senate leadership are simply vying for power.  They have openly and publicly declared their contempt for anything that resembles the Tea Party and are already scheming how to take control of the incoming freshmen.  Not that there is anything wrong with party unity, but this particular party is comprised of grizzled veterans from the Bush era and are sporting some unpleasant battle scars.  Almost all have voted for Medicare expansion in 2003, TARP,  Bailouts,  Bush stimulus and a slew of Federal expansion powers in the form of Real ID Act.  If you truly believe that these same "leaders" offer us prosperity then you are willfully ignoring their previous voting records and those voting records are not pretty.  Read the NYT piece, yes even the NYT can get it right once in a while, exposing what elitist Republicans have on their agenda. 

Issue number two.  The GOP pledge to America.  One does not need to spend much time perusing this useless document to recognize empty and meaningless promises.  Sure, some of it sounds appealing, but it is no more appealing than the 1994 Contract for America.  To put things into perspective, the boldest promise is to reduce spending to 2008 levels! There is no real commitment on Fannie/Freddie or entitlement programs and no pledges for term limits or pork spending.  They promise to repeal ObamaCare, but in the same breath vow to replace it by eliminating pre-existing condition clauses.  Why should the Federal government be in the business of health care, when Medicare/Medicaid are responsible for runaway costs and subpar coverage?  Predictably Newt is back again, this time endorsing and promoting this new Pledge.   Here is the blast from the past from an article written ten years ago, sadly the failures of the Contract have been relegated to the memories of just a few while Newt still celebrates his much undeserved title of fiscal conservatism. 

Consider: Over the past three years the Republican-controlled Congress has approved discretionary spending that exceeded Bill Clinton's requests by more than $30 billion. The party that in 1994 would abolish the Department of Education now brags in response to Clinton's 2000 State of the Union Address that it is outspending the White House when it comes to education. My colleagues Stephen Moore and Stephen Slivinski found that the combined budgets of the 95 major programs that the Contract with America promised to eliminate have increased by 13%. Republican congressional candidates are frightened to be associated with George W. Bush's sensible proposal to allow Americans to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in real assets.

So much for that, eh?  This was in 1994 and even to this day the Contract for America is hailed as a successful initiative, but numbers say otherwise and the current scope and reach of DC is daunting.  Yet this Pledge promises half of what the Contract promised.  Of course we can see in hindsight that after Reagan in the 80s and Newt in the 90s the levels of spending by the Federal only have one discernible direction - up.  Going forward there may be a slight chance that "it will be different this time", but that is not a bet I would put my money on.  Would you?

Update:  Vox Day has a great column and he seems to be of the same opinion, but delves into some issues even further.  I encourage you read his piece and consider the implication of placing your trust into a party that has already betrayed fiscal conservatives once before.