MAYBE WE’RE SUPPOSED TO PRAY FOR A GOP JOBS PLAN…. House Republicans sure find the strangest things to spend time on.
The House Judiciary Committee will consider a resolution Thursday to reaffirm “In God We Trust” as the national motto.
Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) sponsored the resolution, which also encourages displaying the phrase in public buildings, schools, and other government institutions. […]
Forbes sponsored the same resolution last Congress, but it never made it out of the Judiciary Committee.
Yes, but it’s a whole new Congress now, isn’t it?
Keep in mind, the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee will be spending time on this today, but there’s no real point to any of this. “In God We Trust” is already the motto. In effect, the resolution is largely intended to say, “Just in case anyone forgot, the national motto is still the national motto.”
What’s more, the resolution’s conservative backers don’t even have their history right. The measure states as fact that “In God We Trust” has been an integral part of United States society since its founding.” That’s clearly wrong. The phrase makes no appearances in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or any of the Founding Fathers’ writings. Early American leaders chose “E pluribus unum” as the motto on the Great Seal of the United States in 1782, and this was the country’s unofficial motto for nearly two centuries. That changed in 1956 when, as some kind of symbolic Cold War gesture, Congress chose “In God We Trust” as the official national motto. But given that the nation’s “founding” pre-dates 1956, the claim isn’t at all true.
But putting all of that aside, why in the world would GOP officials — the ones who vowed to focus like a laser on the economy — bother with this? For months, the new House Republican majority has wasted time on health care bills they know they can’t pass, abortion bills they know they can’t pass, climate bills they know they can’t pass, and budget bills they know they can’t pass. They’ve invested considerable time and energy on defending the Defense of Marriage Act, recklessly accusing Muslim Americans of disloyalty, going after NPR, and pushing culture-war bills related to vouchers, English as the “official” language, and now “In God We Trust.”
In the meantime, we’re still waiting for that elusive Republican jobs plan to come out of hiding. They’ve been at this now for 10 weeks; they’re bound to take unemployment seriously one of these days, right?
