Barney Frank: “I hope people approaching the Capitol will be careful because they might stumble on the increasingly growing pile of…”

“I hope people approaching the Capitol will be careful because they might stumble on the increasingly growing pile of discarded Republican ideas. In Sunday's Washington Post, there was an excellent article by Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute documenting the extent to which the Republican Party in the House has abandoned its notion of controlling spending. I recommend people read Mr. Moore's article. He used to be a consultant to the Republicans on the Committee on the Budget. He said the Republicans have given up really on controlling spending. They spend it wrong, in some ways; but they spend a lot of it. In this morning's Washington Post, we have another Republican idea of yore biting the dust: term limits. Some people with very long memories, inconvenient ones, will remember term limits. It used to be part of the Contract With America. Some people do not remember the Contract With America, or the contract of Mr. Gingrich; but term limits has also been discarded. It cited cases of the Republican leadership urging Members to break their pledge with regard to term limits. Well, today two more old Republican principles bite the dust. One was not that old, because the Internet is not that old. But we used to hear about freedom of the Internet. We used to hear how important it was that people be allowed to do what they want on the Internet. Now we understand the true principle.…”