(National Review Online) 
Everyone seems to be talking about House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi as a new Speaker of the House after this year’s elections. But is anyone interested in what she has actually done in the past, as a guide to what to expect from her in a powerful position that also puts her next in line to become president of the United States after the vice president?

On immigration, Congresswoman Pelosi voted against tightening border security. Current House Speaker Dennis Hastert voted for it — and also led the fight that stopped the Senate amnesty bill from gaining approval in the House of Representatives.

On taxes, Congresswoman Pelosi has paid no attention to their actual economic consequences and instead repeated the standard Democrat’s line about “tax cuts for the wealthiest few, causing red ink as far as the eye can see.”

Cuts in tax rates have been followed by increases — repeat, increases — in tax revenues. This has happened not only during this administration but also as far back as the Kennedy administration.

Red ink comes from runaway spending, which can always exceed any increases in revenues. When a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives to cut federal spending on welfare, Pelosi voted against it.

Upper-income earners — most of whom are not rich — have in fact paid more total taxes after the rates were cut because these cuts have spurred economic growth and higher incomes. But to admit this would be to abandon the twin pillars of liberalism, higher tax rates, and class-warfare rhetoric.

As regards the war on terrorism and the terrorists’ war against the west, Nancy Pelosi has opposed having international phone calls to and from terrorists monitored by American intelligence agencies.

The liberal spin is that this is “domestic spying” when someone on one end of the line is within the United States. Pelosi also doesn’t think we are treating terrorists nice enough at Guantanamo. She wants to give them “rights” that neither the Constitution nor the Geneva convention gives them.

This is from someone who, as Speaker of the House, would be two heartbeats away from becoming president of the United States. We can only hope that the president and vice president never travel in the same car or fly on the same plane.

Reprinted with permission from National Review Online.

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