Anti-Czar Republican Laments GOP "Rubber Stamp" On Bush Policies

The House Republicans leading the campaign against Obama administration "czars" told the Huffington Post Wednesday that he is "very disappointed" that Congressional Democrats are acting like the Bush-era GOP.

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) acknowledged that his bill, which would bar any presidential adviser who hasn't been confirmed by the Senate from joining the federal payroll, is unlikely to garner the necessary votes for passage. He said the problem is excessive Democratic deference to the White House.

"What's happened with the country is that party has superseded legislative authority, because the legislative branch is supposed to hold a check and balance on the executive branch, but what we have is a speaker and members of the Democratic Party who are saying party affiliation is more important than constitutional division of power," Kingston said.

"I think we made a mistake as Republicans rubber-stamping too much from the Bush administration. In fact, if we had had a little more oversight and scrutiny of the administration's decisions when Bush was president we'd still be in the majority, probably. So I think that the Democrats are making a huge mistake here, and I can promise you the members who voted against this amendment, they will regret that."

The more than a dozen House Republicans who joined Kingston's Wednesday-afternoon press conference offered a number of theories as to what the "czars" are up to. Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) compared the officials on his "czar" chart to those responsible for last year's Wall Street collapse. Rep. Pat Broun (R-Ga.) suggested that they are creating policy and law "counter to the Constitution." Either that, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) said, "or they're simply figureheads, at which point they're collecting a salary for doing no work for the taxpayers."

Kingston vowed during the press conference to try and tack his bill onto next year's appropriations bills.