The Republican's election cycle dilemma

By Rob Janicki

The Constitution gives the legislative branch of government the "power of the purse".  In other words, Congress has the power to pass legislative spending bills or conversely, the power to reject legislative spending bills, all at their discretion.

Here's the problem for Republicans, who are now in control of both houses of Congress, albeit without veto proof majorities.

Republicans seem more concerned with the political "optics" of withholding certain legislative spending bills, then they are about exercising their constitutional mandate of controlling spending and the direction of government and all its agencies through the "power of the purse".

If Republicans are more concerned with their own political futures then they are in exerting their constitutional mandate, what use are they?  Unless congressional Republicans begin to exercise their constitutionally mandated role to to check the Obama administration's often illegal actions by withholding funding for the offending Administration agencies, Republicans will suffer the pain of being turned out by voters.

Republican behavior is directly responsible for the rise of Donald Trump.  Trump is hardly exceptional in anything, except making money in real estate.  He is obnoxious, lacks civility, speaks at a level just above doggrel language that often lacks substance and has wavered all over the board on political and economic principles from conservative sounding thoughts to liberal principles.  Any student of political science will tell you that Trump is not a conservative.  That's just the reality of the situation.

But, Trump has hit the one chord, a populist one, that resonates with Americans on the right of the political spectrum.  He preaches that old time gospel of America's exceptionalism and greatness and gives Americans hope that it can be returned with him as president.

Republicans don't need Donald Trump to stir up voters to vote for a Republican for president on November 8, 2016.  Republicans need to step up to their long held conservatives principles and start living them on a daily basis beginning with doing what the Republican majority in Congress is supposed to do to check an out of control Obama administration and its liberal progressive sycophants in Congress. 

Now, whether we see a new direction with Paul Ryan, as the new Speaker of the House, remains to be seen.  However, if things don't begin to change in the House, and later in the Senate with Republicans, the Republican Party may as well write its own obituary, as history will record this coming election as a turning point of whether our system of government can and will endure going forward.