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Majority leader says republicans compromised agenda { October 16 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6264356http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6264356
Conversations on Politics
Armey: 'Parochial' GOP Has 'Compromised' Agenda
Morning Edition, October 16, 2006 · Dick Armey helped the Republicans take over the House in 1994. The former majority leader now says that the GOP risks losing control of that chamber of Congress because it has failed to seize important issues.
"They've turned in a direction that's... very parochial and very political, and I think it reflects a certain amount of insecurity on the part of the Republicans with respect to whether or not they can hold their majority," the Texas Republican tells Steve Inskeep.
"I think they've had an obsessive concern about losing their majority, and in the process, they have compromised their agenda," Armey says.
Armey says the GOP has failed to seize "the big ideas, like Social Security reform. This is the most important public-policy issue of our generation. Our Republican majority with a Republican in the White House should have taken this -- as we say in Texas -- this bull by the horns and fixed this thing."
He says tax reform and out-of-control spending are two other issues the Republicans have failed to address.
3:09 minutes
Dick Armey: "They've been very ideological with such things as gay marriages, the Schiavo vote....Sp while they've more or less pandered to Christian Evangelical conservatives they neglected pocketbook conservatives."
6:10 minutes
Dick Armey: "Ever week we come into Washington, we do things we ought not to be doing in order to stay in the majority so we can do the things we know are good for the country. But we never get around to the latter. And the fact of the matter is if ...you are zealous in the pursuit of saving your majority you are making political decisions and are probably going to get to a bad place in a hurry."
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