Nothing.  Two peas in a pod despite any protestations.

No - don't even think about justifying this pork-laden, spending increase and tax increase bill as "it was this or nothing else"

The House should have voted it down and demanded a better deal or amended the bill to something reasonable and sent it back over to the Senate.

The economic principles that I believe to be true (because my study indicates that they are consistent with the historical record) show that a free people that is unencumbered with an impersonal, inefficient, overreaching, and regulatory government can best provide for itself.  Further, we believe government is necessary to provide those things that it has been entrusted with, by the people through the Constitution, to provide--nothing more.  

Human history is not pretty.  The centuries have been dominated by premature death, starvation, poverty, blight, disease, famine, filth, decay, conflict, and more recently, Alice reruns.  Once, if you lived to be 40 you were a wise old man--heck, I didn't even become incredibly wise until I reached 41. Free market economics and the industrial revolution changed this in America.  

Alas, intellectuals were not so impressed.  The Soviet Union adopted umpteen 5 year agricultural plans as its people starved.  The soviets, after all, were great planners. Mao Zedong wiped out untold tons of wheat harvest by systematically warring against the evils of sparrows.  (Who wouldda thought sparrows ate bugs that might attack wheat?)  Mao also didn't figure his subjects needed farm implements so most of them were melted down--for the people! In retrospect, Mao's agriculture policy succeeded handsomely only if the goal was to reduce consumption by 50-100 million mouths.  

Most of Africa, perhaps the richest continent in terms of natural resources, enjoys a coast to coast per capita income well south of $1000--yet its peoples are largely subjects of benevolent or authoritarian governments that place a higher value on power over people than they place on the positive economic benefits of freedom.  

In America we watched all of this unfold.  As our wealth grew, as our social problems faded, as our children, generation after generation, enjoyed a better life than their hard working (and self-serving) parents did, the rest of the world spun its wheels or lost ground. About the time that the gulags were being stuffed with enemies of the state, unfettered industry in Detroit helped raise the standard of living in Michigan to unprecedented levels.

These working ideals were once embraced by the Republican Party. Now its most important ideals are a willingness to compromise with failed economic policy and an acquired skill of punting cans just past the next election.  

The former conservative party has strayed from its foundation onto a path that either believes (or is complicit with the belief) that a powerful centralized government can (and shall, by force if necessary) take command of and solve the frail human condition.  

Joblessness?  Hey, we have a Commerce Department so sow seeds for employment, and a Department of Labor to assist out of luck workers.  And, if you want more of that kind of benevolence, President Obama is talking about the possibility of a "Department of Business."  For the effects of joblessness, we have the HHS. For hunger caused by joblessness we have the DOA.  For homelessness often created by joblessness, we have HUD.  To get to the appropriate offices we have a DOT planning with the DOE and the EPA to make certain travel is safe, affordable and accomplished with a small carbon footprint.  You get my drift.

Conservatives do not have to look at the details of a huge spending bill to see what good is in it if we can answer one simple question:  Does the bill make government bigger and more powerful?  If the answer is yes, regardless of any perceived benevolence on the part of our overlords, the bill should be defeated.

Well, this is not how today's GOP believes.  Today's Republican Party is so concerned with staying entrenched in power that it is willing to compromise on its very foundation.  It has become is a decidedly unserious entity with sails willing to grasp wind from any direction.  Who needs a rudder when you don't really care where you end up?  

A little over two years ago I was a huge ally of Dan Benishek.  I wrote about him, advocated for his candidacy, and even plopped down one of his "enough is enough" signs in my yard.

In the aftermath I have discovered what "enough is enough" really means to a "conservative" in today's GOP.  It means that big government is worth compromising on, that economy crippling regulation and taxation is worth compromising on, that a debt so large that we have no serious thoughts of ever repaying it is worthy of compromising on, and that the foundation of today's GOP economic philosophy is as solid as the cracked concrete under my old listing barn.