The priorities of the new House Majority

The Republican Party will be in charge in the House of Representatives as of 01/05/11.
They ran on the platform of Jobs and Debt Reduction.
What makes it interesting is that their first priorities are:
Repealing the health care bill that was passed by the previous congress, start investigations on this administration (by Rep. Issa from California), and vote against the raising of the debt ceiling.
None of the three are the things they campaigned on. Absolutely fascinating.
Let’s start with the first one: Repealing the health care bill. Republicans believe that we should go back to the system that we had before when we had people with pre-conditions being denied by insurance companies, people between 21 and 26 who work in jobs that do not provide insurance coverage will no longer have coverage, having over 50 million with no health coverage, having seniors pay more for medication. And let us not forget that with the health care bill passed in 2010 80% of insurance companies were to be used for coverage. Republicans want to allow insurance to use as much of their fees for profit and for lobbying.
Let us now address Rep. Issa’s idea of investigations. He called Obama the most corrupt president in history on the Rush Limbaugh show, then to rephrase it by saying that the Obama’s administration was corrupt. He included the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) in his blame to the present administration although it was proposed and passed by the Bush administration in 2008. Republicans have done a remarkable job of taking NO BLAME for the mess that they left to Obama. When Obama came into office in January of 2008 the country was loosing of 700,000 jobs a month. We were heading into a depression. The banking system was in total collapse, the auto industry was in total collapse. But it is all Obama’s fault. Rep. Issa wants to investigate this administration rescue of the auto industry. He also wants to roll back regulations. The lack of them is what got us into the situation we were in the first two years of this administration. Republicans have always had a cozy relationship with big business, and the proof was the last election where the Chamber of Commerce funded republican candidates around the country. But Rep. Issa has elevated this coziness to the next level. He sent 1500 letters to businesses inquiring what regulations they would like repealed. Where I come from we call that absolute “prostitution”. What is then the function of government if we allow business to decide everything? We already have it through lobbyists but at least it is done with a little bit more of class.
And last but not least: the debt ceiling. The Tea Party members, both freshmen and others, are campaigning to not allow the increase in the debt ceiling. As one who believes that the government should not spend more than what it takes, not allowing the debt ceiling to be increase will only put our creditors on warning that we are not going to pay. This will provoke a catastrophe because if foreign nations do not buy our bonds, and finance our government, the dollar will collapse and interest rates will increase. As a liberal I would love for the Tea Party members in the republican party to vote down. They would show the whole country what a bad choice they made last November.
I left out the commitment of the republican party to cut 100 billion worth of spending. In reality the only way of doing that is by cutting the defense budget and increasing taxes on the top 2 % of income earners. But they would never do that.
We will see who they will blame in two years for their failures. It is very easy to be the minority than to share responsibility in governing.