Speaker John Boehner Can’t Think Of A Single Program He Would Cut

Doug Mataconis · · 16 comments

This is not a good sign:

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WILLIAMS: Name a program right now that we could do without. BOEHNER: I don’t think I have one off the top of my head.

Reason’s Nick Gillespie is not pleased:

That’s not exactly an ambush, bub. It’s right up there in the softball sweepstakes with Katie Couric asking Sarah Palin to name a newspaper she reads or two Supreme Court decisions she disagrees with. The GOP got kicked to the curb in 2006 because they were up-to-the-neck-complicit with the profligate and stupid spending (and bellicose) ways of George W. Bush. If after four years in the supposed wilderness you get power and the first thing you do is walk back the suggestion that you’re gonna cut $100 billion out of fiscal year 2011 (still without a budget!), and then your main guy bumbles the query above…well, you’re not winning any fans among the growing ranks of independents (read: crypto-libertarians) who want a smaller government that does less and costs less.

I’ve been saying for awhile now that the GOP’s fiscal conservative, cut spending, reduce the size of government rhetoric throughout 2010 was just that, rhetoric, and that when they got back into power we’d see that they had not learned their lesson from the 2001-2006 time in power. Between comments like this and their attempt to back track on a clear campaign pledge to cut $100 billion in spending this year, it’s beginning to look like I was right. Honestly, I thought it would take them longer to reveal their hypocrisy.