We can be grateful for the March 23 vote on the omnibus spending bill. It has confirmed—for anyone still harboring doubts—that most Republicans in Congress have long ago abandoned any pretense to ideological principles, particularly those involving a federalist philosophy of a limited centralized authority.
The Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln died last week, or perhaps it was only confirmation of its earlier demise. The price tag on this philosophical corpse: $1.3 trillion—that’s 1,300 billion dollars. Whether or not one shares the articulated objectives of recent Republican platforms, what is clear is that they are readily cast aside, without complaint, for political expediency.
