“Paul Ryan’s Poor Memory Fails Him Again”: Ryan Just Doesn’t Remember Current Events Very Well
I’ve long marveled at Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) unusually poor memory, and his latest complaints about immigration policy suggest his recall troubles are getting worse (via Jon Chait).
“We’ve gone to the president and said, ‘Give us time to do immigration reform, to work on the issue this year. We want to get this done.’ And this is the reaction he has to that?” said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the 2012 vice presidential candidate. “He had two years with a super-majority of his own party, and he didn’t lift a finger. And now he won’t give us a few weeks?”
It takes a truly talented individual to pack in this many falsehoods into a single paragraph.
“Give us time to do immigration reform”? Well, Republicans have controlled the House for four years, during which time they haven’t even held so much as a hearing on a piece of legislation. More to the point, the Senate passed a popular, bipartisan immigration bill 512 days ago, and soon after, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) promised the lower chamber would act on the issue. The Republican leader then broke his word and killed the reform effort.
In other words, Obama gave Republican lawmakers “time to do immigration reform,” and the GOP did nothing. Does Ryan not remember this?
“He had two years with a super-majority of his own party”? Actually, no, Democrats had a super majority in the Senate for four months, not two years. It’s a big difference.
“He didn’t lift a finger”? Actually, Democrats tried to pass the DREAM Act, which used to be a bipartisan policy, when they controlled Congress. Republicans killed it with a filibuster.
“And now he won’t give us a few weeks?” Well, President Obama not only gave Republicans all kinds of time, he also received no guarantee – from Ryan or any other GOP leader – that another delay would lead to real legislation. So what in the world is Ryan talking about?
It gets worse. Ryan also complained this week that Obama’s decision to govern on immigration policy means Republicans won’t govern on their own priorities.
Lori Montgomery reported on Wednesday on Ryan’s plans, now that he’ll be chairing the House Ways & Means Committee.
An overhaul of the nation’s tax laws will also rank high on the agenda when Ryan (R-Wis.) takes the helm of the tax-writing panel in January.
“We’d like to do it sooner rather than later, but we don’t control everything,” Ryan said in an interview. He cited Obama’s longstanding refusal to roll out his own tax plan as well as the president’s recent decision to forge ahead with a unilateral ban on the deportation of some undocumented immigrants – a move that has inflamed Republicans.
Again, comments like these suggest Ryan just doesn’t remember current events very well. In reality, Obama presented a blueprint for tax reform and asked lawmakers to work on details that could pass both chambers. A bipartisan tax-reform plan came together, at which point, House Republicans killed it.
That’s not opinion. It’s just what happened.
Complicating matters, Ryan prefers a more right-wing version of tax reform than the one outgoing Ways & Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) unveiled, with Ryan’s version focused primary on – you guessed it – tax breaks for the wealthy.
Chait’s conclusion rings true: “It’s just bizarre for Ryan to lament that Obama’s plans to make immigration enforcement more humane is costing him the chance to cut taxes for the rich.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, November 22, 2014
“Artificial Republican Unity On Immigration”: There’s No Reason For Progressives To Be Defensive About Obama’s Actions
The grand irony of the president’s immigration action is that it was to a considerable extent the product of intra-Republican disunity on immigration policy–yet it will unite the GOP in real and fake outrage.
For all the yelling and screaming about “Emperor Obama,” his action was temporary and could be instantly revoked by a Republican president or superseded by legislation from a Republican Congress. But Republicans are in complete disarray on the subject, though there is a distinct trend towards “deport ’em all” nativism (though not the will to provide the resources necessary to “deport ’em all,” which would make actions like Obama’s impossible).
At present, though, the Establishment Republicans who privately view their nativist “base” as a bunch of destructive yahoos can join with said yahoos in an orgy of recrimination, mooting their agreement with the substance of what Obama is doing even as they pretend they believe the procedure is the greatest threat to democracy since yadda yadda yadda.
So the appropriate response of progressives to what we’re going to hear over the next weeks and months is: What do you propose to do about it? Can Republicans agree on an immigration policy (no, “securing the border first” is not an immigration policy, but at most a component of one)? What should this and future administrations do in the face of a gigantic gap between the number of undocumented people in this country and the resources to deal with them? Is using the fear of deportation to encourage “self-deportation” what you want? And if you do want to “deport ’em all,” then exactly how much money are you willing to appropriate for police dogs, box cars, whips, holding cells, and so on and so forth? Do you suggest we just suspend the Constitution and have us a good old-fashioned police state for a few years until we’ve deported 11 million people?
And if Republicans actually have the guts to go against their “base” and take on comprehensive immigration reform, there’s this little matter of the bipartisan bill that’s been languishing in the House for seventeen months. John Boehner could at any moment bring it up and pass it with Democratic votes. Why isn’t that at least on the table?
These sort of questions should be asked early and often. There’s no reason for progressives to be defensive about Obama’s action. Republicans made it necessary. Let them tell us exactly what they would do if they were in power.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal, The Washington Monthly, November 21, 2014
“A Party In Search Of A Policy”: Republicans Don’t Seem To Want To Do Anything Except Stop Obama From Solving Problems
If anger were a legitimate substitute for public policy, Republicans would be in excellent shape in the middle of a debate on immigration. The GOP has stockpiled enough rage, fury, insults, and red-hot disgust to last a lifetime. There isn’t a shred of doubt in anyone’s mind that the entirety of the Republican Party is experiencing genuine, 100%, Grade A outrage.
What Republicans don’t have is a policy.
Or anything resembling a serious, substantive approach to the issue at hand.
A few days ago, Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), a strident, right-wing voice in his party on immigration, sat down with Mark Halperin, who asked what the congressman would do about the nation’s immigration challenges. Huelskamp dodged, so Halperin, to his credit, followed up, pressing the Kansas Republican to explain what he’d do about the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Huelskamp dodged again. So Halperin asked a third time, and the Republican would only say, “I want to know how many folks are here. I want to secure the border.”
It was uncomfortable to watch – the far-right congressman was clearly lost – but it was a cringe-worthy reminder that Republicans still don’t have a coherent immigration policy they’re willing to share out loud. Ezra Klein had a good piece on this overnight.
Republicans aren’t just the opposition party anymore. They are, arguably, the governing party – they will soon control the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, most state legislatures, and more governorships. And the governing party needs to solve – or at least propose solutions – to the nation’s problems. And that means the Republican policy on immigration needs to be something more than opposing Obama’s immigration policies. It needs to be something more than vague noises about border security. […]
There are 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the country right now. Congress allocates enough money to deport roughly 400,000 of them annually. Our policy towards the 10.6 million unauthorized immigrants we’re not deporting is that we don’t have a policy. Democrats support a path to citizenship. Republicans don’t support anything.
Quite right. There’s a striking asymmetry, not just between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to presenting policy solutions, but between Republican responsibilities and Republican intentions – they’re a post-policy party with an aversion to governing, which is a problem for a party that has been given broad authority by voters to shape policy and govern.
It’s all painfully obvious, but just as importantly, it’s playing out in real time. This week, for example, a governing party with a policy agenda would respond to White House executive actions by weighing legislation on immigration. The Republican Party, in contrast, is deciding whether to shut down the government until the White House makes the GOP feel better. If that falls short, Republicans might weigh impeachment – and perhaps publish some colorful tweets.
Ezra added, “Even if you think he’s going too far, he at least wants to solve the problem. Republicans don’t seem to want to do anything except stop Obama from solving the problem.”
The GOP wants to present itself as the grown-up party. Republicans see themselves the serious ones who can be trusted to wield power responsibly, unlike those wacky and reckless liberals.
It’d be a less laughable pitch if someone, anyone at all, could identify what the party’s position on immigration policy is.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, November 21, 2014
“Institutional Treason”: Boehner’s Lawsuit Is Betrayal Of Congress
Republicans have finally filed their lawsuit against the president over implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Actually, the president isn’t a respondent; the suit names the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Treasury Secretary. It’s still a horrible idea.
Michael Lynch and Rachel Surminsky at the Monkey Cage provide one reason: The suit is likely to fail. The first issue is “standing.” To get into court, the House would have to prove that it was damaged by the way the administration carried out the ACA, and courts have consistently rejected that idea. Beyond that, it’s far from clear that the administration’s actions, including the delay of the employer mandate and cost sharing for insurance companies, were beyond the normal discretion the executive branch has to carry out laws. Just because some Republicans want to pretend that before January 2009 presidential power had been limited to pardoning Thanksgiving turkeys doesn’t mean they are right.
And if Republicans win, it would be terrible for Congress.
I’ll say it again: Speaker John Boehner and House Republicans aren’t asking for authority to be returned from the White House to Congress. They want an imperial judiciary that could trump either of the elected branches.
In a system of separated institutions sharing powers, which is what the Constitution created, all three branches do things that look a lot like legislating, but laws can trump administrative or judicial rule making. That gives Congress serious clout within the system. This lawsuit, however, is an abdication of that clout. In effect, it says that the courts, not Congress, should have the last word when there’s a dispute between branches.
Filing this lawsuit amounts to institutional treason. Boehner and House Republicans should be ashamed. The rest of us can only hope that the courts rescue them by keeping to precedent and tossing this lawsuit into the garbage.
Then, perhaps, the House could consider getting back to legislating.
By: Jonathan Bernstein, Bloomberg View, The National Memo, November 21, 2014
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“Doing What They Do Best”: House Republicans Just Passed A Bill Forbidding Scientists From Advising The EPA On Their Own Research
Congressional climate wars were dominated Tuesday by the U.S. Senate, which spent the day debating, and ultimately failing to pass, a bill approving the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. While all that was happening, and largely unnoticed, the House was busy doing what it does best: attacking science.
H.R. 1422, which passed 229-191, would shake up the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board, placing restrictions on those pesky scientists and creating room for experts with overt financial ties to the industries affected by EPA regulations.
The bill is being framed as a play for transparency: Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, argued that the board’s current structure is problematic because it “excludes industry experts, but not officials for environmental advocacy groups.” The inclusion of industry experts, he said, would right this injustice.
But the White House, which threatened to veto the bill, said it would “negatively affect the appointment of experts and would weaken the scientific independence and integrity of the SAB.”
In what might be the most ridiculous aspect of the whole thing, the bill forbids scientific experts from participating in “advisory activities” that either directly or indirectly involve their own work. In case that wasn’t clear: experts would be forbidden from sharing their expertise in their own research — the bizarre assumption, apparently, being that having conducted peer-reviewed studies on a topic would constitute a conflict of interest. “In other words,” wrote Union of Concerned Scientists director Andrew A. Rosenberg in an editorial for RollCall, “academic scientists who know the most about a subject can’t weigh in, but experts paid by corporations who want to block regulations can.”
Speaking on the House floor Tuesday, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., summed up what was going on: “I get it, you don’t like science,” he told bill sponsor Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah. “And you don’t like science that interferes with the interests of your corporate clients. But we need science to protect public health and the environment.”
The House, alas, is staying the course, voting this week on two other bills aimed at impeding the EPA, including one that prevents the agency from relying on what it calls “secret science” in crafting its regulations — but which in reality, opponents argue, would effectively block the EPA from adopting any new rules to protect public health. The trio, wrote Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, in an editorial for the Hill, represents “the culmination of one of the most anti-science and anti-health campaigns I’ve witnessed in my 22 years as a member of Congress.”
The White House has threatened to veto all three.
By: Lindsay Abrams, Salon, November 19, 2014
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