We Need to Change the Government

From Conservative HQ:Principled small government constitutional conservative Representatives Tim Huelskamp, Justin Amash, Walter Jones and David Schweikert -- who were all ousted from their Committee posts because they voted and spoke against Speaker Boehner’s constant abandonment of conservative principles -- are now treading the hard path of standing for their principles in today’s insider dominated Republican Party.To these four relative newcomers to Washington’s ways, it probably seems like a lonely and unforgiving road. But it is a road conservatives have traveled to victory before.Congressman – and soon to be Senator – Jeff Flake “never sought a special bridge, courthouse, parking lot, or teapot museum for his district. Republican leaders were so incensed at his role in exposing GOP earmarks in 2006 that they booted him off the Judiciary Committee,” The Wall Street Journal reminds us.In 2006, in the aftermath of the wipeout of Speaker Dennis Hastert’s Big Government Republicans, principled small government constitutional conservative Congressman – and soon to be Governor of Indiana – Mike Pence challenged establishment Republican JohnBoehner for the House Minority Leader’s position saying:Only by making a dramatic turn in the direction of the agenda of the Republican Revolution can we hope to attain majority status again..... We must again embrace the notion the Republicans seek power not simply to govern but change government. We are the agents of change and we must return to that reformist vision...."I believe we must confront this moment with new leadership and new voices. We must take a page from the playbook of President Ronald Reagan who taught us that it is not enough to believe great things, we must effectively communicate great things to the American people...Pence lost out to Boehner, but two years later he was elected House Republican Conference Chairman and helped steer the House Republicans in a more conservative direction in the run-up to the 2010 Tea Party wave election that returned the GOP to the majorityin the House.Huelskamp, Amash, Jones and Schwikert will no doubt have a steady line of Capitol Hill insiders whispering in their ear telling them thatstanding for their principles is a career ending road to political oblivion.The record is quite the opposite.The 2010 Tea Party wave election and the Tea Party rebellion were as much a rebellion against the principle-free establishment Republican leadership as they were a rebellion against the excesses of the Obama, Pelosi, Reid triumvirate that passed Obamacare and ran-up multi-trillion dollar deficits in 2009 and 2010.On the spending side, little has changed since John Boehner was elected Speaker. For all the brave talk from establishment Republicans, they have posted trillion-dollar plus deficits every year since Boehner was elected Speaker and Boehner's spending is not that far off from Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s spending.Huelskamp, Amash, Jones and Schwikert have been right to question the leadership of a Republican Speaker with that kind of record anddemand that Republicans do better.Jeff Flake, Mike Pence and other principled small government constitutional conservatives have shown that the road of following your principles may sometimes be lonely, but in the long run, it is a lot more likely to bring about political success than caving in ever has.