“Anybody who’s a Republican right now, come June, is going to be accused of hating seniors, hating education, hating children, hating clean air and probably hating the military and farmers, too,” said Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), a fiscal conservative who is lobbying to become chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “So much of the work is going to be appropriations related. There’s going to be a lot of tough votes. So some people may want to shy away from the committee. I understand it.”

Kingston said he’s approached Bachmann, King and Westmoreland about the committee, and they all told him they weren’t interested.

That leaves Republican leaders in a dilemma: How do they live up to the tea-party-driven effort to slash spending if the committee that controls the purse is still dominated by old bulls and senior lawmakers who are only grudgingly giving up earmarks?

Answer:  They won’t.  Because while there’s big talk about responsibility and cost containment, the real goal is power.  New boss, old boss, etc.  I’ll believe different when I see different.  Hopefully they’ll prove me wrong, but I think it’s more likely we’ll see a lot of gridlock, and the same ‘blame the other party’ strategy the Democrats used while they had an overwhelming majority.