The Party of Personal Responsibility

NRCC Chair Pete Sessions says Republicans should go back "the exact same agenda" of the George W. Bush years (!), but he can't actually tell you what said agenda might include in 2010-2011.  And NRSC chair John Cornyn is completely unwilling or incapable of explaining what that means.  

It's almost as if the Party of Personal Responsibility can't afford to let voters know what they want to do... if they actually know what they'd like to do.

More from The Party of Personal Responsibility and Self-Righteous Budget Hawks:

House Budget Chairman Allen Icet, R-Wildwood, has said he isn’t concerned that the budget is out of balance at this point. What matters, he said, is what is in the bills when they’re sent to Nixon.

[Rep. Chris Kelly (D-Columbia)] thinks otherwise. “Before it leaves the House, it ought to balance,” Kelly said. "It’s not an answer to let the Senate do it or let the governor do it. I have an obligation to fulfill my oath of office, regardless of what the governor or Senate does."

The Party of Personal Responsibility and Self-Righteous Budget Hawks:

The House Budget Committee chairman [Allen Icet] said he will leave it to the Senate and Gov. Jay Nixon to make the roughly $500 million in cuts to next year's budget that were proposed by Nixon last week.

What happened to Ron Richard's "plan" to reform state government and cut the state budget?

Rep. Brian Nieves (R-Washington) doesn't like his political rivals talking about his close relationship with disgraced former Speaker Rod Jetton. In his mind, that relationship is "ancient history."

Nieves said he “broke all professional association” with Jetton immediately after the former speaker’s arrest. The business relationship “is ancient history,” Nieves said.

Jetton was arrested December 8, a mere 72 days ago, and Nieves did not sever his " professional association” with Jetton until after the arrest. 

Nieves' name was listed as a client on Jetton's website at the time of the arrest, and Nieves' campaign committee reported paying Jetton thousands of dollars consulting fees as recently as September 2009. 

Rep. Scott Rupp (R-Wentzville) is standing up for the rights of Missourians to not pay their taxes.

In his latest newsletter, Rupp expresses great concern with the proposal to allow the state to seize delinquent taxes from people's bank accounts.  Gov. Jay Nixon proposed the idea in January, and fellow Republican Sen. Carl Vogel (R-Jefferson City) has said he plans to sponsor legislation to make it happen. Rupp:

Now, instead of closing loopholes in the tax code, or determining a course of action in which the state government actually looks for even more ways to save money, our governor came up with a “big brother” idea. His thought: maybe the Department of Revenue should be able to get into our bank accounts and seize money when taxes go unpaid. Bank seizures are part of the proposed new laws the governor wants to balance his budget on, to the tune of $22 million this year and $49 million in 2012. Somehow I doubt that these new laws will get a warm reception in the Legislature.

Yesterday on the Allman in the Morning radio program, Roy Blunt was asked about Michael Steele's very loud condemnation of recent GOP leadership.  Predictably, Blunt wasn't too happy with Steele's assessment that Republican leaders (including Blunt) were "enablers for big government" and "screwed up." In responding to a question from host Jamie Allman, Blunt reminded listeners  that he wasn't actually the Speaker or President when he all that 'enabling' and 'screwing up' was happening. 

I think he was critical of the President and the Republican leaders. And, you know, I was one of the Republican leaders. I wasn't the Majority Leader at the time, I wasn't the Speaker at the time, I wasn't the Leader in the Senate at the time, I wasn't the President.

Listen:

Blunt was the acting Majority Leader after Tom DeLay was indicted, and should have been asked to explain what he meant by "I wasn't the Majority Leader at the time."  Regardless, his comments were clearly intended to downplay his role as a key leader for Republicans when they controlled Congress.  Yet any suggestion that Roy Blunt wasn't a key part of all Republican legislation -- good or bad, depending on your perspective -- is absurd.