After Payroll-Tax Debacle, GOP Goes Into Damage-Control Mode
Atop the House chamber Wednesday morning, the flag fluttered in the breeze. In his office underneath the Capitol dome, House Speaker John Boehner twisted in the wind.
His House Republicans had killed a bipartisan plan to cut taxes for 160 million Americans, earning themselves an avalanche of criticism and condemnation from friend and foe alike. So Boehner assembled nine of his House Republican colleagues in his conference room, invited in the TV cameras, and proclaimed that Republicans really and truly want to enact the payroll-tax break that they just defeated.
“We’re here. We’re ready to go to work,” Boehner announced.
But the only thing he was working on, it turned out, was damage control.
Fox News’s Chad Pergram, noting that Boehner’s talking points were mostly about legislative process, asked: “Do you think that you’ve lost the argument?”
“We’re here. We’re ready to work,” the speaker repeated.
Reuters’s Tom Ferraro asked what Boehner made of the criticism from Senate Republicans “like Scott Brown, who says you’re playing politics.”
“We’re here, ready to go to work,” Boehner answered.
CNN’s Deirdre Walsh further annoyed the speaker by mentioning the savage editorial in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal that branded the GOP payroll-tax strategy a “fiasco.” Another reporter asked if there might be some way to back down on his refusal to accept the Senate’s two-month extension of the payroll-tax cut.
“We’re here, ready to work,” Boehner said.
The Associated Press’s Dave Espo asked “if any of the 10 of you intend to go home for Christmas.
“We’re here, ready to do our work,” Boehner said.
At exactly the moment House Republicans were executing the failed photo-op, Democrats were on the House floor, trying to disrupt the day’s “pro forma” session with a stunt designed to further embarrass the majority.
Although most House members had gone home for the holidays, House leaders arranged the perfunctory sessions so that the chamber wouldn’t technically go into recess without passing the payroll-tax cut.
But as the speaker pro tempore, Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), sought to bring the pro forma session to a close, “pursuant to Section 3B of House Resolution 493,” Steny Hoyer, the Democratic whip, interrupted to request that the chamber bring up the Senate bill. Fitzpatrick walked off the dais.
“Mr. Speaker, you’re walking out!” Hoyer called after him. “You’re walking away just as so many Republicans have walked away from middle-class taxpayers.” A few seconds later, the sound system was cut off and the C-SPAN cameras were disabled.
Hoyer, joined by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), took his case to the microphones outside the House chamber, where a statue of the late humorist Will Rogers, hands in pockets, seemed to gaze at the pair with a look of amusement.
“The speaker of the House and the Republican leadership were AWOL,” Van Hollen complained.
That’s because the leaders were conferring nearby with their “conferees” – the people Boehner wants to negotiate a new tax deal with Democrats. But there is a problem with this plan: Senate Democrats already negotiated a compromise with Senate Republicans, and the House Republicans rejected it. And, to the Democrats’ delight, several of the “conferees” Boehner appointed are on the record opposing the payroll-tax cut.
“I’m not in favor of that. I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said one conferee, Dave Camp (Mich.), according to the Hill newspaper.
“From a policy standpoint, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” another conferee, Tom Price (Ga.) told National Public Radio.
The conferees did not address this awkwardness at their photo-op (aides, handing out seating charts to the photographers, didn’t pretend it was anything more than that), instead turning the discussion to non-sequiturs.
Price gave his perspective “as a physician.” Renee Ellmers (N.C.) delivered her remarks “as a nurse” and “as a mom.” Rep. Nan Hayworth (N.Y.) added the information that “I’m a doctor and a daughter of elderly parents” and has “also been a small employer.” Tom Reed (N.Y.) let everybody know “I have an 11- and 13-year-old at home.”
Congratulations, all around. None of these credentials, however, avoided the conclusion that the House Republicans had screwed up badly and now stand to take the blame if payroll taxes rise.
Two minutes after their photo-op, the conferees, abandoning the conceit that they were conferring over anything, left Boehner’s conference room.
“Is the conference over?” I asked Price.
He chuckled. “Legislation is not a game of solitaire,” he said.
But for House Republicans, it’s getting very lonely.
By; Dana Milbank, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, December 21, 2011
An Efficient Metaphor For What’s Wrong With Congress
We know Congress isn’t getting along. But that’s no good reason to spend less time together.
The House’s 2012 calendar is out, and it reflects some of the divisions the chamber is experiencing. Majority Leader Eric Canto has scheduled just 109 days in session, a schedule he said will make for a more streamlined legislative process while giving lawmakers the opportunity to spend time with their constituents. House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer complained that the schedule is “more of the same.” This year so far, the House has conducted legislative business for just 111 days, Hoyer noted, nearly equal to the 104 days spent in recess or in pro forma session.
Let’s be clear: when the House is back home, they are not on vacation. Their work schedules in the district are sometimes more arduous than those they have in Washington, since lawmakers are expected to travel around their districts, speaking to a myriad of constituencies. They also have to raise campaign cash during these trips, a task that is becoming an increasingly larger part of their jobs.
Nor is Congress slacking off when they are not actually on the floors of the House and Senate. They have committee hearings, meetings with constituents, and (hopefully) negotiating sessions with fellow lawmakers.
But spending less time in Washington is not going to heal the divisions in Congress. In fact, it’s likely to get worse. Especially in the House, with its 435 members, personal relationships are critical to achieving compromise. Lawmakers who barely see each other will never get past the party-identification barrier.
Further, the calendar (like this year’s) is out of synch with the Senate calendar. The two chambers take week-long recesses at different times, making it harder for the House and Senate to reach the compromises necessary to pass legislation.
The 2012 calendar is campaign-friendly, however. After October 5, members are free until after the 2012 elections, giving them the time to keep their jobs, but not actually do their jobs. The new calendar is indeed more efficient, as Cantor contends. But it’s an efficient metaphor for what has gone wrong with Congress.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, October 28, 2011
Walking Away From The Truth: GOP Playing With Matches On The Debt
Just ignore Tuesday’s vote against raising the debt ceiling, House Republican leaders whispered to Wall Street. We didn’t really vote against it, members suggested; we just sent another of our endless symbolic messages, pretending to take the nation’s credit to the brink of collapse in order to extract the maximum concessions from President Obama.
Once he caves, members said, the debt limit will be raised and the credit scare will end. And the business world apparently got the message. It’s just a “joke,” said a leader of the United States Chamber of Commerce, and Wall Street is in on it. Not everyone found it funny.
No matter how they tried to spin it, 318 House members actually voted against paying the country’s bills and keeping the promise made to federal bondholders. That’s an incredibly dangerous message to send in a softening global economy. Among the jokesters were 236 Republicans playing the politics of extortion, and 82 feckless Democrats who fret that Republicans could transform a courageous vote into a foul-smelling advertisement.
The games that now pass for governing in an increasingly embarrassing 112th Congress are menacing the nation’s future. It was bad enough when Republicans threatened to shut down the government to achieve their extreme and extremely misguided spending cuts, but that threat would have caused temporary damage. The debt limit is something else altogether. If the global credit markets decide that the debt of the United States will regularly be held hostage to ideological demands, it could cause significant harm to investment in long-term bonds and other obligations. That, in turn, could damage domestic credit markets and easily spark another recession.
To prevent this from happening, 114 Democrats in April asked for a “clean” vote without conditions. But Republicans were not about to set their hostage free. Knowing that the clean vote would not pass — and imposing a two-thirds majority requirement to ensure its failure — House Republicans gave the Democrats what they requested. They then voted it down, sending their reckless message to the world.
But there was no excuse for so many Democrats to go along with that message, including the leadership. Steny Hoyer, the minority whip, urged his members to vote no so they would not “subject themselves to a political 30-second ad attack” with all Republicans voting no. Apparently Mr. Hoyer did not trust voters to understand what a dangerous and dishonest game the Republicans are playing.
The exercise has prompted the White House to convene talks to discuss the Republicans’ scattershot demands, which have ranged from trillions in spending cuts to the outright dismantling of vital safety-net programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Democrats have hoped to get an increase in revenues out of any deal, but House Republican leaders emerged from a White House meeting on Wednesday spouting the usual discredited claims that higher taxes on the rich would impede job growth.
What Republicans seem unwilling to acknowledge is that the debt-limit debate is not about future spending. It is about paying for a deficit already incurred because of two wars and tax cuts approved by both Republicans and Democrats at the behest of a Republican president. Tuesday’s vote was a chance to do the right thing and educate the public on why it was necessary. Instead, too many lawmakers walked away from the truth.
