H/T Jared Law http://www.the912project.us/forum/topic/show?id=2881797%3ATopic%3A1835353&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_topic

You’re going to learn quite a bit in a very short time, about the history that Glenn Beck has referenced when he mentions the successful “Had Enough” campaign in 1946, and the unceremonious throwing out of Republicans two years later, having been tarred and feathered by the “do-nothing congress” lie building up to the 1948 election.

This is an excellent editorial from the Washington Times, the only remotely-fair Washington, D.C.-based national newspaper in America (when I say fair, I’m referring to treatment of conservatives and others to the right of the Obama Regime). And while it’s true that the Washington Post has actually done bits and pieces of accurate journalism on the Tea Party movement (mostly surveys, infographics, etc.), it’s a heavily-leftist-slanted newspaper.

The fact of the matter is that this is PRECISELY what the Obama Regime is attempting to do to the Republicans. So IF, and ONLY IF, the Republicans do what they have promised to do, and they do their utmost to throw a wrench into the works of the Obama Regime, and actually accomplish something (with our help; they only control the House of Representatives for the next two years), then we must stand by them and help defend them from the inevitable charges of a ‘do nothing congress,’ and help to educate our peers about how incredibly necessary it is to drastically cut government spending, even if it hurts, and to stop the destructive Obama Regime.

Either way, we MUST continue to reach out to all of our peers, including friends, neighbors, relatives, co-workers, church congregation members, those on our email list(s) who aren’t already here, etc. and build our LOCAL networks which we’ll all be using quite a bit as time progresses. Every one of us must become a focus of a local network, since we were here and awake first. not that every one of us was born to network like this, but it is incumbent upon us because who else will do it if we don’t? And if we don’t do it now, when will we? Please don’t forget to INVITE all who agree with at least 7 of our 9 Principles, and all of our values, to JOIN US here on The 9.12 Project Network!

Here’s the excellent editorial:

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The ‘Do The Right Thing’ Congress

By James S. Robbins | January 2nd, 2010

After the Democrats’ shellacking at the polls in November, liberal pundits began evoking the Republican Congress that took power after a similar electoral defeat during President Harry Truman’s first term. The “do nothing” Congress lasted just two years; in 1948, the Republicans ceded control of the Hill, and Truman was narrowly re-elected president. President Obama would like to replay this script and will take every opportunity to tag the incoming House Republican majority as obstructionist, irresponsible and out of touch. Yet in some respects, the 80th Congress set an example from which the 112th Congress could benefit.

Republicans took control of both houses of Congress in 1946, running on the still timely slogan “Had Enough?” Voters were fed up with continuing price controls and other restrictive programs that had been put in place during World War II but that liberal government functionaries were loath to give up. Then as now, Republicans promised smaller government, lower taxes and fewer regulations.

Previous Democratic Congresses had run up unprecedented debt, and the Republicans were determined to balance the federal budget. Rep. John Tabor, New York Republican, pithily summarized the president’s first proposed budget as “too damn high.” Republicans were as good as their word, and federal outlays declined an astonishing 47 percent between 1946 and 1948. This was in part because of post-World War II demobilization but also because Republicans cut every program they could.

The GOP also tried to cut taxes, which brought a swift veto from Truman, who called the bill “the wrong kind of tax cutting at the wrong time.” A second bill, which Truman called a “rich man’s tax relief bill” also was vetoed. In both cases, the vetoes were overridden in the House but not the Senate. A third, watered down tax cut survived. Republican policies took the federal budget from a 31 percent deficit in 1946 to a 40 percent surplus in 1948. This came about in spite of, not because of, Truman’s obstructionism. Congress also enacted the landmark Taft-Hartley Labor Act, which was passed over Truman’s veto by a coalition of Republicans and (now mostly extinct) Southern Democrats.

Congress generally supported Truman’s foreign policy, which was strongly anti-communist. Congress approved the Marshall Plan for rebuilding postwar Europe, supported the Berlin Airlift and condemned the Soviet-backed communist coup in Czechoslovakia. In 1948, the Senate passed the Vandenberg Resolution, which paved the way for the formation of NATO. But congressional Republicans got little credit for this show of bipartisan unity. Republicans also were concerned about excessive amounts of international borrowing, but in those days, the issue at hand was the amount of U.S. loans to other countries, not America going hat in hand to China to borrow money to underwrite out-of-control federal spending.

In retrospect, the 80th Congress did a lot, but it did not do what Mr. Truman wanted. In his 1948 State of the Union message, the president called for an increase in business taxes to offset income-tax reductions for low-wage earners, a plan Congress rejected. He also called for a national health care program financed by compulsory insurance, a policy of dubious constitutionality passed with Obamacare but the 112th Congress will seek to repeal.

The “do nothing” tag was the result of a political ambush. Truman called a special session of Congress in the summer of 1948 for action on the more liberal aspects of his social agenda. When Congress predictably refused to enact those measures, the slogan took flight. In the 1948 election, the Republicans lost 75 seats in the House and eight in the Senate, surrendering control of both bodies. Truman pulled out an upset victory over favored Republican Thomas E. Dewey. He benefited from a 3.8 percent unemployment rate and economic growth of 4.4 percent, both of which were largely products of conservative economic policies pushed by Congress. True to form, the new Democratic majority in the 81st Congress put the budget back into deficit.

A “do nothing” Congress would be a relief after the 111th “spend everything” Congress with its most noteworthy achievement – creating more debt than the first 100 Congresses combined. But Republicans face a false choice between pursuing Mr. Obama’s left-wing agenda and doing nothing. The new Congress was sent to Washington to fulfill a popular mandate for smaller government, lower taxes, decreased regulation and a general dismantling of the nanny-state excesses of the past two years. If its new members do the right thing and stick to that agenda, they can return to the voters in 2012 with a record worth defending. And they can be secure in the knowledge that Mr. Obama is no Harry Truman.