Bouie: GOP Not Serious About Reform

Posted March 5, 2013 14:28 by Alan

Among other things, the fight over sequestration has revealed the extent to which there isn’t a real constituency for policy reform in the GOP. Most Republicans — from elected officials to activists and thinkers — remain committed to the agenda crafted in 2010 and 2011, the one Mitt Romney ran on unsuccessfully in 2012…

It almost goes without saying that a party interested in reforming itself shouldn’t expand its commitment to the same policies that caused it trouble in the first place. In other words, as much as reform is on the tip of conservative tongues, the fact of the matter is that the GOP has no desire to change its substantive priorities.

In fairness, some of this is unavoidable; Republican power is based in the House of Representatives, where individual members aren’t always committed to the health of the national party. Indeed, genuine reform won’t — and probably can’t — come from the congressional wing of the party.