Common Sense in the GOP’s “Pledge”?

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Why does the new House Republican campaign platform’s call for immediate discretionary spending cuts feature a clause promising “common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans and our troops”?

“Seniors” is an awfully broad swath of society to place off-limits, particularly given that quite a few American seniors retire into affluence. (And what about children? No common-sense exceptions for our adorable toddlers?) Veterans? Okay. As for “our troops”: Certainly no one is going to deny them, say, body armor or the best weapons available for the threats they face. But Pentagon spending is an awfully large category to place off-limits. And one wonders whether the category described by “our troops” includes stuff like this:

Mr. Boehner says he is opposed to excessive spending. Political watchdog groups acknowledge he maintains a policy against seeking “earmarks,” a kind of pork-barrel spending to benefit home constituents. This year he pushed a moratorium on special-interest spending provisions that aren’t requested by the administration.

But in May, he voted to add $485 million to the defense budget for a fighter-jet engine the Pentagon said it doesn’t want. Parts of the engine are made in his home state, Ohio.

“Common sense” starts at home, it seems….