GOP "Pledge to America"

CBS News has a draft of the Republican House agenda they call, "Pledge to America." Let's look at each point.

Jobs:

- Stop job-killing tax hikes

That would be nice.

- Allow small businesses to take a tax deduction equal to 20 percent of their income

Sounds good to me.

- Require congressional approval for any new federal regulation that would add to the deficit

Would this actually do anything?

- Repeal small business mandates in the new health care law.

Good idea.

Cutting Spending:

- Repeal and Replace health care

I'll be amazed if they can accomplish this. They'd be better off focusing on eliminating some of the more odious provisions on a point-by-point basis.

- Roll back non-discretionary spending to 2008 levels before TARP and stimulus (will save $100 billion in first year alone)

Sounds good to me.

- Establish strict budget caps to limit federal spending going forward

Limit it to what? This is pretty vague.

- Cancel all future TARP payments and reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Good luck with reforming those organizations.

Reforming Congress:

- Will require that every bill have a citation of constitutional authority

It couldn't hurt.

- Give members at least 3 days to read bills before a vote

Seems reasonable.

Defense:

- Provide resources to troops

That's incredibly vague, and something we are already doing.

- Fund missile defense

That's good, but nothing new from the GOP.

- Enforce sanctions in Iran

Is anyone excited about that?

If you go through the actual draft document, it fleshes out the points a bit. But overall I find it fairly underwhelming.

Obama Scrapping Missile Defense Plans

President Obama can never do something right without following it with an ill-advised action. Just the other day, I was congratulating the president for the successful operation in Somalia. But today, reports indicate that Obama will abandon our missile defense plans in Eastern Europe.

The White House will shelve Bush administration plans to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move likely to cheer Moscow and roil the security debate in Europe.

This action is yet another example of Obama's inexperience and naivete in foreign policy matters, one of the many reasons that someone with his minimal qualifications should never have been elected president.

The U.S. will base its decision on a determination that Iran's long-range missile program hasn't progressed as rapidly as previously estimated, reducing the threat to the continental U.S. and major European capitals, according to current and former U.S. officials.

So that means we are going to wait until it actually is a serious threat before deploying defensive measures. That's some brilliant national security thinking -- about what I'd expect from a Democrat.  But let's pretend that the administration's lame explanations for abandoning hard won plans for missile defense in the region are actually accurate, instead of just fables covering its obvious preference for empty talk and wishful thinking over concrete security measures. Instead of scrapping deployment unilaterally, why not at least use it as a bargaining chip to extract some serious concessions from the Russians? Instead, Obama is just going to project his usual weakness, hand Putin a victory on a silver platter, alienate our friends in Eastern Europe, and demonstrate yet again that we can't be trusted to follow through on security arrangements.