By Staff Writer
I didn’t leave the Republican Party the Republican Party left the people who actually wanted to get something done. I didn’t sign up to support a movement of cautious careerists and soundbite specialists. I wanted a party strong enough to make hard decisions, disciplined enough to balance a budget, and transparent enough to let voters see who’s working for them.
Instead, we’ve built a machine where procedure replaces courage, leadership replaces deliberation, and self-preservation replaces purpose.
Rep. Nancy Mace said what millions of Americans have been feeling for years in her New York Times op-ed: Congress doesn’t work. She walked into Washington believing in the possibility of reform and she ran headfirst into a wall of inertia made of men afraid to lose their power.
The GOP’s problem isn’t that it lacks policies. It’s that it lacks principle-driven execution. And worse, it’s forgotten who it serves.
Mace’s words cut deeply when she wrote, “The House has not considered a single open rule since 2016.” For those outside Washington, that sentence may sound procedural, but it’s a moral indictment.
An open rule allows amendments meaning your representative, the person you voted for, can actually debate and shape the law. Closed rules suppress that, forcing everyone to vote yes or no on bills they never had a hand in crafting. When no one’s allowed to legislate, there’s no accountability.
Think about it: since 2016, the House of Representatives, supposedly the People’s House, has operated under a system that silences most of its members. That means no one outside leadership and its chosen staffers writes the laws that spend trillions of your dollars. And it’s bipartisan. Democrats perfected this under Pelosi; Republicans meekly inherited it and never changed it.
It’s not gridlock. It’s protectionism for the powerful, not the people.
And the absurd part? These same leaders wrap this shrinking of democracy in the language of “efficiency.” They tell us open rules take too long, that they’d cause “chaos.” But the Constitution wasn’t written for efficiency. It was written for deliberation. The House isn’t supposed to be a rubber stamp it’s supposed to be a battlefield of ideas.
Mace also said the quiet part loud: Republican women have more guts than the men, and the men can’t handle it.
Look around. The most outspoken, reform-minded conservative voices in Congress right now are disproportionately female Mace, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Anna Paulina Luna, and others each unafraid to call out corruption, overreach, or complacency. And what do they get for it? Mockery, marginalization, or selective silence from their own colleagues.
When Mace said Nancy Pelosi was “more effective than any Republican speaker this century,” she wasn’t praising Pelosi’s ideology she was indicting her own party’s weakness. Pelosi wielded power effectively because she understood that leadership means governing, not performing. She got her caucus to act on its agenda, however extreme it was. Republicans, on the other hand, get cold feet the moment they have the majority.
The men in charge talk like warriors but act like managers of decline. They strategize for cable news cycles instead of history books. They worry more about donor perceptions than voter priorities. And when women in their ranks dare to challenge that complacency, they’re treated as “disruptive.”
If the GOP truly wants to prove that it values merit, it’s time to stop treating outspoken women like branding accessories. Mace doesn’t need permission. She needs a mic and a vote that counts.
Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Americans don’t care about “motions to vacate” or parliamentary intrigue they care about whether Congress can pass a budget that respects both logic and arithmetic.
We’re $35 trillion in debt. Federal interest payments now rival defense spending. But Congress keeps churning out “continuing resolutions” and “omnibus” bills that keep every agency funded regardless of performance. This isn’t fiscal conservatism it’s lazy autopilot governance.
An omnibus bill is everything people hate about Washington in one document:
Thousands of pages few have read.
Billions of dollars no one can trace.
A guarantee that toxic provisions slip through unseen.
If Republicans were serious about stewardship, they’d eliminate omnibus bills altogether. Pass each appropriations bill separately Defense, Agriculture, Transportation, Energy and debate them in the open. Let the people watch Congress at work instead of being told afterward what they “secured.”
That’s transparency. That’s courage.
But here’s the truth no one in leadership wants to say: both parties prefer the current scam. When every department’s budget gets rolled together, everyone protects everyone else’s pork. Republicans vote for foreign aid boondoggles because Democrats vote for their defense contracts, and vice versa. Everyone wins but the taxpayer.
No more. If Republicans want to claim the mantle of fiscal honesty, start by reading the bills you pass and letting Americans see who adds what.
If the GOP wants to stop acting like a minority party even when it holds the gavel, the path forward is simple not easy, but simple:
Reinstate open rules. Give members the ability to debate and amend. Accountability will sort the real conservatives from the paper ones.
Ban omnibus legislation. Require single-subject appropriations. If it can’t pass on its own, it doesn’t belong in the budget.
Enact term limits. The founders never intended professional politicians who spend four decades working their way up the committee hierarchy.
Ban stock trading by members. No more pretending “blind trusts” make insider knowledge disappear.
Implement transparency in appropriations. Every penny should be matched to a visible line-item, publicly searchable online.
Reform leadership elections. Make leadership accountable to recorded votes of the full conference, not shadow deals in D.C. apartments.
Enforce discipline on balanced budgets. If your spending exceeds projected revenues, you must vote to raise the debt limit openly not hide behind procedural ceilings.
These ideas aren’t radical. They’re basic ethics the kind of self-restraint every household in America practices. The only reason Washington resists them is that sunlight kills the culture Congress depends on.
Let’s talk plainly: Donald Trump has more support than Congress not because he’s perfect, but because he works. His movement reshaped the political right into something pragmatic and populist a reflection of ordinary Americans who are done with lectures from people who never built anything.
The GOP establishment still doesn’t understand that. They want the Trump base’s energy but not its accountability. They talk about “draining the swamp” but balk the second it threatens their relationships with lobbyists and donors.
When Trump throws his weight behind “Make America Healthy Again” with RFK Jr., he’s signaling something revolutionary that health, truth, and independence are as patriotic as defense spending and tax reform. Congress should be leading that charge. Instead, it’s undermining it with bureaucratic torpor.
Voters notice when the president moves faster than the legislative branch. It tells them who’s working for them and who’s working for the system.
Every moment Congress dithers, the American middle class bleeds. Inflation erodes savings. Energy prices climb. Public trust sinks lower than any pollster can measure. Yet leadership pretends we have time to spare. We don’t.
Time is the one currency the Republic can’t borrow or print.
Mace was right when she said, “No majority is permanent.” If Republicans can’t prove they deserve power by exercising it with principle, the voters will find someone else who will. The conservative cause is not about soundbites it’s about stewardship. A true conservative conserves trust as much as budgets. Right now, the GOP is bankrupt on both.
I want a Congress that votes on bills its members have read. That passes budgets built from arithmetic, not lobby sheets. That tells the truth about hard choices instead of gaslighting voters with slogans about “fiscal responsibility.” I want a Republican Party that acts like the majority it claims to be confident, competent, unafraid.
That requires change at the top: end the stranglehold of central leadership, open the rules, and put sunlight on every legislative process. Stop worrying about what CNN will say and start worrying about what your grandchildren will inherit.
Mace said, “Let us vote. Let the people see. Let the chips fall. That’s democracy.” She’s right and it’s long overdue.
If Congress keeps operating on cruise control while the country drifts toward collapse, what’s even the point of elections? We didn’t elect placeholders; we elected representatives. It’s time they represented us not their careers.
The American people are watching a once-great institution stumble under its own cowardice. But this decline isn’t irreversible. The solution isn’t complicated. It’s to restore courage.
Let members legislate.
Read the bills.
Balance the books.
Hold hearings that matter.
Respect those yes, often women who actually have the grit to say no to their own leadership.
The Founders risked everything for independence. Today’s Congress won’t even risk a donor dinner for integrity. That’s the real crisis and it’s one the GOP can still fix if it finds its backbone.
Do your job, pass a real budget, and lead the way this country deserves. The clock is ticking and the people are out of patience.
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