While Democrats celebrate victories on election day with Barack Obama's reelection, conservatives and liberals have focused on that, but the GOP in House were victorious as well, holding on to a massive majority.
Nothing has changed in the power structure. Democrats still control the Senate and White House, Republicans still hold the purse strings in the House of Representatives, despite a concentrated effort by House minority leader Nany Pelosi's and her assertions that Democrats would take control of the House.
They didn't.
That is the first point.
The second point is both Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell have both said, since election night: No Tax Hikes.
McConnell:
"I wasn’t sent to Washington to raise anybody’s taxes to pay for more wasteful spending and this election doesn’t change my principles," McConnell said. "This election was a disappointment, without doubt, but let’s be clear about something: the House is still run by Republicans, and Republicans still maintain a robust minority in the Senate. I know some people out there think Tuesday’s results mean Republicans in Washington are now going to roll over and agree to Democrat demands that we hike tax rates before the end of the year. I’m here to tell them there is no truth to that notion whatsoever."
Boehner:
Raising tax rates is "unacceptable" to House Speaker John Boehner as he prepares to open negotiations on the looming "fiscal cliff" with the president and congressional Democrats, he told "World News" anchor Diane Sawyer today in an exclusive interview.
"Raising tax rates is unacceptable," Boehner, R-Ohio, said in his first broadcast interview since the election Tuesday.
"Frankly, it couldn't even pass the House. I'm not sure it could pass the Senate."
The best way to create new revenue is to create jobs, which creates more taxpayers and to help businesses expand, which creates jobs, puts money into the pockets of the people to spend in the economy. The bigger the businesses grow, the more they pay in taxes, hence more revenue for the government.
For the last two years it has been the responsibility of Republicans in the House to be, in Boehner's words on election night "the primary line of defense for the American people against a government that spends too much, taxes too much and certainly borrows too much."
As the numbers above show, that is still the House Republican's job and the people that voted for them to maintain that job expect them to be just as vigilant for the next two years.
Our job as conservatives is to remind them of that job, hold their feet to the fire, and make sure they understand that in the 2014 elections, we will stand behind them if they do so.