Renee Ellmers: throwing the Tea Party under the bus, mastering the art of DC double-talk

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You need radar to track the movement of  Renee Ellmers’s positions on the issues.  Elected in 2010 as a grassroots Tea Party populist, the 2nd district Republican congresswoman has spent most of her first term at the right hand of House Speaker John Boehner.   To the disgust of Tea Partiers, she has supported raising the federal debt ceiling, and has publicly voiced her opposition to the state’s gay marriage vote in May.  Now, she has come down ON BOTH SIDES of the issue on BarryO’s payroll tax cut proposal.

Here’s what she said in November:

“[…] Payroll tax holiday, yeah sure, that’s okay. I think we can do that, but it’s not the answer and that’s what our President and that’s what Harry Reid and the Senate keep pushing for, these tiny little feel good measures.  We don’t need more gimmicks.  We need leadership,” said Ellmers. […]

So, in November 2011, she’s AGAINST giving Barry what he wants on the payroll tax.  Earlier this month, she got praised throughout the conservative movement for blasting Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) for pushing a tax cut without  off-setting spending cuts.

Fast forward to this past week:

[…] The House-Senate negotiations also suggested a shift in Washington’s political landscape, which was upended with the arrival of tea-party-backed Republicans after the 2010 elections.

Rep. Renee Ellmers (R., N.C.), a tea-party-backed Republican who was on the House-Senate payroll-tax conference committee, took to the House floor on Friday and stated, simply: “this is a very important breakthrough and shows that we can actually work together and compromise for the sake of the American people.” […]

Miss  Harnett County — in her short tenure in Washington — sure has mastered the time-tested art of wetting your finger to see which way the wind is blowing.  Unfortunately, THAT is not the bill of goods she sold The Tea Party in 2010.  John Boehner didn’t help her squeak past Bobby “Boom Boom” Etheridge.

The payroll tax is THE ONLY SOURCE OF FUNDING FOR SOCIAL SECURITY.  When you cut the funding, but don’t cut the level of benefits paid out to retirees, you are encouraging deficit spending and indebtedness.  THAT is the kind of stuff the Tea Party is trying to stop.  THAT is the kind of stuff Miss Harnett County promised us she was going to fight in Washington.

Social Security is already in a highly precarious financial condition.  THIS definitely won’t help to stop the fiscal bleeding. 

For the record, 91 House Republicans voted AGAINST this payroll tax legislation.  146 GOPers voted for  it, as did 147 Democrats.  It’s a sign of trouble for House Speakers when they need votes from the minority party to get stuff passed.  If Boehner loses his post, Miss Harnett County loses her “rabbi.”

Ellmers has become starstruck with DC, and sold her soul to the Establishment.  Her votes and revolving-door principles are putting our state, our country and our future generations in further jeopardy.

She clearly doesn’t have our back.  Why should we have hers in May or November?