Update: Ed Martin, Eagle Forum

Dear Friend,

One week ago, I traveled to Washington, DC for meetings that were scheduled a few months ago. During the day I spent there, I along with some Eagle Forum state leaders met with a dozen members of the House and one Senator.

To a person, these members of the United States Congress complained about the Boehner-Obama secret budget deal that had been released just a day or two earlier.

"It just came out and no one really knows what's in it” they all said in one way or another. And “Republican leadership wants it passed, but how can we vote on this massive deal if we haven't read it?"

If this sounds to you just like Nancy Pelosi who told us that the Congress "ha(s) to pass the (Obamacare) bill so that you can find out what is in it," you're right.  It was appalling to hear this from members of Congress ... and infuriating to realize that John Boehner was asking Republicans to vote for a budget bill they did not yet understand AND to give Obama unlimited authority to raise the debt. (By the way, this week, the Obama administration admitted that it raised the debt by nearly $300 billion after Obama signed the Boehner-Obama budget.  The insanity continues.)

After lunch last Wednesday as I sat in more meetings with members, I suddenly realized what was happening: the United States Congress - the House in this case - was preparing to execute one of their classic lies to the American people: the old bait-and-switch vote.  Here's how it worked: just after 3 p.m. EST, there was a vote on the floor of the House with all of the Republicans in the House except 29 voting to advance the "Rule" for the Boehner-Obama secret budget deal.  By passing this "Rule," Republicans who had not read the bill or even likely understood its details, were putting Boehner, Pelosi and Obama in charge of our future.  To be clear: If the Republicans had voted against this "Rule," there would have been no vote on the budget deal.

What happened next is the best recent example of how Americans have been betrayed.  At just after 5 p.m., the House voted on the Boehner-Obama secret budget deal.  138 Republican members of the House changed their vote from just a few hours ago and voted against the Boehner-Obama secret budget deal. 

Let me be clear: the reason these Republicans voted FOR the Boehner-Obama secret budget BEFORE voting against it was so they could come home to you the American people and tell you that they voted against a very bad bill. But they didn't vote against Boehner-Obama budget until after they voted for it.

It is always a surprise when men and women of good will are dishonest. We conservatives believe the truth matters and that men and women of good will are abiders of the truth.  To be candid, I am not sure whether the lies we are being told are malicious or if the Republicans are in the throes of "Stockholm Syndrome" and believe that what they are doing is somehow justified. But I am not sure it matters: America is on the brink and our Congress is lying to us.

I flew home to St. Louis last Wednesday evening and my stomach sank, not just from a bumpy flight, but because I knew something was dramatically wrong in our nation.

All the best,

Ed Martin, President
Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum