DeLay Likens GOP Contract to Magna Carta

[BurtWorm]

(This is news?)


April 13, 2005

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-DeLay-Contract-Website.html?pagewanted=print&position=




Filed at 1:03 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- To House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the Republican Party's ''Contract With America'' ranks right up there with the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights among the ''great documents of freedom.''

So says DeLay's Internet Web site. It describes that 1994 campaign treatise, credited with helping the GOP end four decades of House rule by Democrats, ''a written commitment that presented to the people an agenda for the House of Representatives.''

''In exercising their freedom to govern themselves, the people could read The Contract with America and embrace the agenda in the document,'' according to DeLay's site which includes a tutorial on the Constitution. ''The resulting vote re-established the people's control of Congress ...., '' it says.

[shoelace414]

1. and how many points from the contract on America

did they pass?

how many are currently law?

[Democrat 4 Ever]

3. And how many repugs have honored the term limit they swore

to uphold when they sold their souls to the GOP devil? I know my representative has conveniently "forgotten" that little promise.

[applegrove]

2. Yup - Magna Carta led right into the 'Dark Ages' when elites controlled

much and markets went caput everywhere. Catholics elites kept all the good information for themselves. Totally difference thing than the bill of rights. But the Dark Ages do have much in common with 'contract out on america'.

Delay's feet are definitely off the ground. Quick! get in the car... we can try and follow him until a draft brings him closer to the ground. I don't want to see Delay go anywhere. We cannot loose him. We Democrats need him on the news every single night for the next year.

Catch him!

[TheFarseer]

4. hold on - what was the contract with America again?

I thought it was basically balance the budget, am I way off?

[shoelace414]

5. here

http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html

# FIRST, require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress;
# SECOND, select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;
# THIRD, cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
# FOURTH, limit the terms of all committee chairs;
# FIFTH, ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
# SIXTH, require committee meetings to be open to the public;
# SEVENTH, require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
# EIGHTH, guarantee an honest accounting of our Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.

[BurtWorm]

7. I couldn't tell you. I just remember a bunch of Orwellian titled bills

on the order of The Reverance for the Elderly Act to Gut Medicare.

When you get right down to it, not many people know what's in the Magna Carta either. In that sense, the comparison may be apt. But the Republican Contract actually has about as much historical relevance as the lyrics of your average commercial jingle.

[Melynn]

6. Delay is starting to lose it.

Delay is looking back at his career instead of looking forward. A sure sign that the end of his career as a congressman is coming to an end.

[elehhhhna]

8. Tom's lauding Gingrich's baby so Gingy gets off Tom's a$$