Morning Glory: Time’s a wastin’, House GOP

Among the oldest and wisest of clichés is "the perfect must not become the enemy of the good." 
 
"Perfect" is not achievable in a world still ungoverned by angels. "If men were angels, no government would be necessary," James Madison wrote in Federalist 51, and, of course, neither party has even one angel at its head. All elected officials are imperfect and all have been elected from particular constituencies to accomplish different things. 
 
Only one office holder, however, has been elected — decisively — by all the people. Thus, President Donald Trump should have an outsized, indeed dispositive, influence on the budget and reconciliation package moving through the GOP-controlled House and Senate. 

HOUSE, SENATE REPUBLICANS CLASH OVER MAMMOTH TRUMP BUDGET BILL SEEKING $1.5T IN CUTS
 
Unified government comes but rarely to Republicans, so they must reach every time it presents itself for the entire package of major legislative goals on their and the president's agenda. 

Budget battles are heating up under the dome of the U.S. Capitol building, as Republicans fight to trim the budget. (Fox News Digital)

Theoretically, given the very narrow majority, each member of the House has a veto over every other member of the House until at least April, so this must be a compromise bill issuing from the House, but it cannot be compromised in its aims. Everyone must vote for it. As Trump quite clearly leads the GOP, his agenda ought to lead the party’s legislative efforts in both chambers. 
 
I don’t know what the president is insisting on or those particulars he is indifferent to. I do know that the midterms are a very short 20 months away from the beginning of voting. The economy must, by then, be well into a "boom," the border secure, dangerous and violent migrants who entered illegally either detained or ejected, and our military embarked on a renewal long, long overdue. 
 
That means, in my view, a wall building on the border, the permanent extension — with some revisions — of the Trump tax cuts, and a vast expenditure on defense modernization. Trump ran on reorganizing the government and making it work for citizens, and authority to downsize the government far beyond existing authorities would also be welcome, as would a spending provision cutting federal dollars off from states without robust school choice programs in place beginning in 2026. 
 
There is a second budget and reconciliation package available to the GOP in the late summer and fall, but first things first. If inflation is not tamed and economic growth poised to or already begun a big leap, Trump’s last two years in office will be plagued by more made-up impeachments and House-led and MSNBC-fed histrionics. 

If the American military is not the world’s most lethal, no economic boom will matter for long. If our border is not secure, we do not have a country but a destination. 

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So, friends in the House GOP, get it done. Spill all the red ink and bet on America. 
 
"Fundamental things are afoot," as Hillsdale College’s President Dr. Larry Arnn likes to say. Focus on that and your role in it. An individual obsession on a specific demand will be the undoing of a vastly important project: the restoration of American standing in the world in time to restore order and bring peace and prosperity to the West. 
 
If you can’t vocally endorse everything, then ask for a small win somewhere in a big package and take comfort in it. No congressman of the Republican Party’s right, center or left has a right to hold the party and thus the country’s future hostage to their own beliefs, no matter how deeply held. 

I don’t know what the president is insisting on or those particulars he is indifferent to. I do know that the midterms are a very short 20 months away from the beginning of voting.

Get on with it, House GOP. Time’s awasting and the employers of the country — not the vast government bureaucracies but the men and women who actually employ themselves and others in the private sector doing productive things — are waiting for the rules of the road to be laid down. Our enemies are watching. Would-be migrants around the globe have paused their proposed long journeys, and the cartels are anxious. Everyone is waiting on a House that cannot fail, or the country suffers a terrible blow, as do all of our allies. 

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Perhaps you will watch or rewatch the first two episodes of "Adams," a work of small-screen genius from 2008. If you do, ask yourself if you would want to John Dickinson or rather one of the patriots in that particular drama? With a one- or two-seat majority at best, one or two can sink everything and give the Democrats a huge win (and the Chinese Communists, and Iran, and Russian President Vladimir Putin and every other enemy of the rule of law across the globe that hopes for a fading away of a second American century.) 
 
These weeks are the most important of your career, no matter how long or in which positions you serve. Don’t blow it. 

Hugh Hewitt is host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show," heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990.  Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.

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