The GOP is still at it.
Eric Cantor is set to give a speech tomorrow in which he is supposed to take new rhetorical steps designed to “soften” the GOP’s image. However, Ron Fournier reports that there will be no softening of GOP ideology, only a softening of tone:
The speech will attempt to cast the House GOP’s traditionally conservative policy agenda in terms that appeal to parents, explaining why school vouchers, tax breaks, repealing the health care law, and other Republican standards would “make life work better.” […]
Cantor plans to ask Congress to require universities to warn students when their academic majors lack employment opportunities; to repeal the tax on medical devices, a provision of Obama’s health care overhaul; and to shift spending from political sciences to “hard” sciences such as cancer research.
One thing he won’t do is moderate Republican policies. Cantor is talking about a change in tone, not ideology, which begs the question: With a demographic tide threatening to crush the modern GOP, is it enough to just tweak talking points?
Short answer: No.
As Greg Sargent points out, there are three prongs to the GOP plan for revival: Change the tone, not the message; rig the system so that they win elections with fewer votes; and hope for a Messiah to save them from the wasteland they’re in now.
None of those plans change the constant: the majority of Americans don’t like what the party is selling, and they’re getting tired of being played for suckers.
to shift spending from political sciences to “hard” sciences such as cancer research
Because nothing kills the wingnut agenda like rational study of its policy planks.
I wonder whether he’ll require the same of places like George Mason University…
Didn’t his kind try the same sort of thing before, with Copernicus and Galileo? Oh, right: the Earth is the center of the universe, and it’s a plot by godless secular humanists to use scientific methods – including direct observation – to disprove that.
Has he figured out that it will cost taxpayer dollars (in the short term at least) to require universities to warn students when their academic majors lack employment opportunities and those tax dollares aren’t going to be obtained through repeal[ing] the tax on medical devices? No, of course not; the federal budget is manna dropped from Heaven™, and taxes are an unfair imposition on Real, Genuine Patriotic Ahmurrcans™.
There are days I think the only thing that keeps a##hats like Cantor in office is decades of education system neglect.