Not everybody on the Right is thrilled with the Pledge.
Erick Erickson at RedState calls it “Perhaps the Most Ridiculous Thing to Come Out of Washington Since George McClellan.”
These 21 pages tell you lots of things, some contradictory things, but mostly this: it is a serious of compromises and milquetoast rhetorical flourishes in search of unanimity among House Republicans because the House GOP does not have the fortitude to lead boldly in opposition to Barack Obama.
Andrew Roth at Club for Growth said the document shows Republicans “aren’t ready to lead”:
I want to like the new GOP Pledge to America. I want to endorse it, but it’s so milquetoast that it proves to me that these guys just aren’t ready to lead. In order to prevent a return of the big-spending Republican ways during the Bush years, the House GOP needs to institute two things that will FORCE them to behave — getting rid of earmarks and enacting a balanced budget amendment or a spending limit amendment. This new Pledge was silent on both. Therefore, the Pledge has no teeth. Voters have no reliable assurances that House Republicans will behave appropriately.
Phil Klein at AmSpec hits the Pledge for punting on entitlement reforms:
But the most egregious problem with this “Pledge” is that it’s a slap in the face to the youth of America. While it proposes ideas such as rolling back discretionary spending to 2008 levels, it completely avoids any concrete proposals on the biggest threat facing America: our looming entitlement crisis. Instead, the document reads: “We will make the decisions that are necessary to protect our entitlement programs for today’s seniors and future generations. That means requiring a full accounting of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, setting benchmarks for these programs and reviewing them regularly, and preventing the expansion of unfunded liabilities.” So in other words: “trust us.” This coming from the party that added trillions to our long-term deficits by enacting the Medicare prescription drug plan. And it’s worth noting that at another place in the document, the GOP attacks Medicare cuts within the new health care law.
I understand that some would argue that it’s unrealistic to expect a major political party to propose serious entitlement reform weeks before the election. But by the same token, Republicans shouldn’t expect conservatives to adopt this exercise in cowardice as their battle cry. Republicans like to address Tea Parties and talk in terms of the revolutionary spirit sweeping across the nation, and they even invoke the Declaration of Independence in the opening of their “Pledge to America.” But the proposals contained within the document show that all this revolutionary talk is mere rhetoric, and that in reality Republicans have learned nothing from their time in the wilderness. The House Republicans are interested in attaining and then maintaining power, and not concerned with advancing the cause of limited government at a make-or-break moment in American history.