“Resolution To Disapprove”: By Voting Against Themselves, Republican’s Hope To Fool The Tea Party
On Tuesday, the Senate held a vote on a “resolution to disapprove” of raising the debt limit. The resolution failed 45-54. The 45 disapprovers were all Republicans. Twenty-seven of the Republicans voting to disapprove of raising the debt limit also voted, just a few weeks ago, to raise the debt limit. Do those 27 Republican senators disapprove of their own votes because raising the debt limit turned out to be a terrible mistake with disastrous consequences? No. They voted to disapprove of their own actions because a group of loud and angry people disapprove of their actions.
The face-saving “resolution to disapprove” measure seems to derive from a a 2011 McConnell idea that would have preserved the debt limit as a grandstanding ploy without actually risking default. In McConnell’s plan, the president would be allowed to increase the debt limit a little bit at a time, and Congress would then vote on whether to disapprove of the raises. It’s actually pretty brilliant politics, as it would have done two things:
- Forced President Obama to raise the debt limit, which is always politically unpopular, three times in one (election) year.
- Allowed every single Republican in Congress to vote against raising the debt limit without worrying that the U.S. would actually default.
Naturally, McConnell’s plan was declared rank RINOism and it went nowhere. This was in part because some conservatives believed that the plan removed the possibility of extracting massive concessions in exchange for raising the limit, but also because there simply are a lot of conservatives who oppose raising the limit at all, ever. The result of not listening to McConnell: Republicans had to vote to raise the debt limit anyway, conservatives now feel betrayed, right-wing Senate primary challenges are more likely, and non-far-right voters have more reason to be scared of allowing Republicans to govern.
Thus the meaningless symbolic vote of disapproval, in both chambers. The sorts of conservatives McConnell is hoping this stunt satisfies may be deluded enough to believe that breaching the debt ceiling wouldn’t be so bad, but they are not dumb enough to be impressed with this gesture. Most important, the people and organizations they get their information and take their cues from will not suddenly start praising these 27 senators, McConnell included, as True Conservatives.
At this point, it’s very easy to get on the wrong side of the activist conservative movement, and once you’re labeled a RINO, there’s almost nothing you can do to clear your name. John Boehner had to let the extremists take the whole country on Mr. Ted’s Wild Ride for a few weeks just to keep his job, and most Tea Party types still hate him. Sen. John Cornyn is in trouble for taking his signature off a petition.
And look at the sad tale of Marco Rubio, who, not long ago, was supposed to be a major contender for the “true conservative” vote in the 2016 Republican primaries. Then Rubio, like an idiot, actually listened to people more concerned with the long-term survival of the GOP than short-term symbolic victories and attached himself to the comprehensive immigration reform project. Activist conservatives hate immigration reform nearly as much as they hate Obamacare. Now, Rubio has abandoned his bill. He’s praised Cruz to the heavens and joined the vote against the deal to reopen the government, but the damage is done. Rubio has been tainted as a cooperator. In March, Rubio came in a close second to Rand Paul in the CPAC straw poll. In October, he received 5 percent — 35 votes out of 762 — in the Values Voters straw poll.
Symbolic gestures, like McConnell’s, and outright flip-flops, like Rubio’s, aren’t going to quiet or stop the conservative revolt. They might at least provide some sort of model for getting through this next year without it doing too much more damage. The government will have to fund itself. The debt ceiling will need to be raised again distressingly soon. The “resolution to disapprove” could be the way Congress passes everything from now on. Pass some sort of minor budget deal, then vote on the resolution disapproving of it. Pass the farm bill, hold the vote disapproving of it. Maybe try immigration reform again with a disapproval vote attached?
None of this will fool Erick Erickson and Heritage Action and the Senate Conservatives Fund and Freedomworks, but it might just allow terrified Republicans to convince themselves that it’s OK to take votes leadership wants them to take. You get to have a backsies!
By: Alex Pareene, Salon, October 30, 2013
“A Pliable Opportunist”: Spinning With The Political Winds, Marco Rubio Is Becoming The Next Mitt Romney
The Great Marco Rubio Recalibration continues.
Months after helping the Senate pass a sweeping immigration reform bill, the junior Republican senator from Florida has dropped his support for the legislation, saying he now favors a targeted, piecemeal approach to the issue.
It’s a stunning about-face from earlier this year, when Rubio’s soaring rhetoric and tireless efforts helped propel a comprehensive, bipartisan bill to a successful vote. And with that, Rubio risks appearing to have flip-flopped on a defining issue even faster than you can say “Mitt Romney.”
With the House resistant to take up a comprehensive immigration bill, Rubio’s spokesman on Monday said he believes a piecemeal approach is the only way anything will get done.
“The point is that at this time, the only approach that has a realistic chance of success is to focus on those aspects of reform on which there is consensus through a series of individual bills,” Rubio spokesman Alex Conant told Politico. “Otherwise, this latest effort to make progress on immigration will meet the same fate as previous efforts: Failure.”
Of course, a piecemeal approach will almost surely doom meaningful reform. The whole point of a comprehensive approach is give each side something they want, such as a pathway to citizenship for Democrats and tougher workplace enforcement for Republicans.
Conant added that Rubio always preferred a piecemeal approach (though many would debate that), but worked with the Gang of Eight anyway “despite strong opposition within his own party and at a significant and well documented political price.”
That gets at another force pushing Rubio away from his own bill: Public opinion. Or, more accurately, Republican public opinion.
Rubio’s standing within the GOP eroded all year as he was unable to convince skeptical conservatives the immigration bill was more than just amnesty for undocumented workers. Once one of the most popular GOP senators in the country, his approval rating slid into negative territory in his home state, and he fell to the middle of the pack in hypothetical polls of the 2016 GOP field.
To stem the bleeding, Rubio tiptoed away from the bill since its passage in June, saying after the government shutdown that President Obama had “undermined” the bill’s odds of passing by refusing to negotiate with Republicans over budget matters. Even before that, he took a backseat in finalizing the bill while two other GOP senators stitched together an almost comically robust border enforcement provision to win over the necessary Republican votes.
Though Rubio may indeed have preferred piecemeal bills all along, his walk-back could wind up earning him a reputation as a pliable opportunist.
“I’m not sure it has ever happened before that an architect of major legislation in the Senate has basically opposed its passage in the House,” Rich Lowry wrote in National Review. “The politics of this aren’t great for Rubio,” he added, saying the freshman senator would surely “take another hit, understandably, for his inconstancy.”
Inconstancy, though not unheard of in politics, is not a good habit to form. Accusations of flip-flopping dogged Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns and kept him from winning over dubious voters. He tried to position himself, after years of presenting a moderate exterior, as a “severe conservative” to capture the GOP nomination. And, like Rubio, he ran away from his most visible legislative achievement: RomneyCare.
The move to the right didn’t work out so well for Romney, only further cementing his image as a man without convictions.
Rubio hasn’t earned himself quite the same reputation, and we’re a long way from 2016. But if he makes a habit of spinning with the political winds, the GOP will begin to see him less as the party’s savior, and more as the second coming of Mitt Romney.
By: Jon Terbush, The Week, October 28, 2013
“Health Care Sabotage 101”: The GOP, Not A Botched Website, Is The Real Obstacle To Implementing Obamacare
It’s the latest chapter of Barack vs. the Health Care Killers, The Continuing Saga of Posturing, Bad Faith, Spite and Ineptitude.
Republicans, who have used every trick in their playbook to gum up the works of the Affordable Care Act, are now holding hearings to investigate how the works got so gummed up.
They could save themselves the trouble by looking in the mirror, just as O.J. Simpson could have done to find his wife’s killer. But that would rob them of the chance to grandstand.
In fairness, they do have one point. The Obama administration botched the debut of its insurance marketplace website so badly that it fairly begged for an investigation. And since Republicans had little or nothing to do with the website, the blame for its failures falls squarely on the president and his deputies.
The screw-up was a gift. GOP lawmakers were calling the law a failure before most of it went into effect, but lacking any evidence they had to rely on mere accusation. Now, finally, they can say that their worst predictions had some validity.
Nevertheless, Republican “outrage” over the glitches is hard to take seriously. If they’re really looking to find what went wrong — and there was plenty — one suspects it’s only so they can clone the virus. Then anyplace where the law is working, such as Kentucky, Washington and Oregon, they can infect the system, watch it crash, shake their heads and snicker.
Come on, folks. Republicans want to “fix” what’s broken here as much as they want to “protect” women by targeting their reproductive rights and “defend” the vote by obstructing it. But because Healthcare.gov went live on the same day that the party crazies shut down the government over the law’s funding, they were too deep in their own morass to capitalize on it. Worse, they had to fold on the shutdown without getting anything in exchange. No wonder they’re pouncing on the chance to grill the people whose job it was to enable what they’ve called the worst law in the history of man.
Yes, the administration deserves to be on the hot seat. There was more than enough time to make sure the website worked properly and there is no excuse for its failure to do so.
Mr. Obama had to know that the first weeks would set the tone for public perception. If he had wanted to raise doubts about the program or shoo people away, he couldn’t have done a better job of it.
Once again, we have to wonder what goes on in his mind. This legislation is only the most important accomplishment of his presidency. He put everything on the line for it. Millions of people are counting on it for coverage they cannot otherwise afford. If he can’t get the introduction right, well, let’s just say it’s a good thing he won’t be running again.
But then there’s that pesky caveat called perspective. A botched website, which can and will be repaired, is nowhere near the biggest obstacle to the success of health care reform. That distinction goes to the program’s sworn enemies, who have been conducting a misinformation campaign of false claims and scare tactics since the law was passed. To hear them tell it, “Obamacare” will turn people into devil worshipping socialist homosexual vegetarians who want the terrorists to win. So of course they will do everything they can to stop it.
Exhibit One: The quickest and easiest way for states to enact the law’s reforms is to expand Medicaid, which would trigger a huge infux of federal dollars for the first several years. Yet Republican governors in 26 states have refused to do so. The primary excuse is that they won’t be able to afford it once the federal money stops. The subtext is that they’d rather sabotage the president than help their own citizens get the treatment they need. Thanks to them, according to a New York Times analysis, the new law will leave out two-thirds of the nation’s black citizens and single mothers, and half of the low-wage workers who currently lack insurance.
In addition, GOP governors (including our own Tom Corbett and, regrettably, a few Democrats) have refused to create insurance exchanges that would facilitate reaching the uninsured. Instead, those people will have to go to the federal exchange.
They’re also refusing to assist applicants and blocking the use of so-called “navigators,” whose job is to help people understand the law and sign up for its benefits. When a constituent calls with questions, they are making sure they’ll get no answers.
Then there was the government shutdown, during which Republicans offered more than 40 measures to cripple the law. They failed in every sense, but it still cost the country $24 billion.
It doesn’t take a genius to see where the real obstruction lies. For all its screw-ups, the Obama administration is trying to make health care reform work. And for all their public posturing, Republicans are trying to ruin it. But the law was duly passed, it’s here, and it’s not going away. They should save the fake righteousness for a cause that isn’t already lost.
By: Sally Kalson, Pittsburg- Post Gazette, October 26, 2013
“Bursting At The Seams”: No Tent Is Big Enough For The GOP’s Crazy Wing
The problem with a big tent is that it takes just a couple of people inside to ruin everyone’s afternoon by misbehaving, yelling or refusing the bathe ahead of time. And that is the very problem the Republican party is facing as it seeks to placate the crazy wing of the party while trying to present a more serious and dignified conservative front.
Both major parties have their share of malcontents and blowhards. Both have people who make outrageous comments or comparisons to get attention (Democrat Alan Grayson recently compared the tea party movement to the Ku Klux Klan, which seems an especially provocative comment given that we have an African-American president who might not see the tea party’s rogue actions as being quite on the level of lynching and hanging black men).
But when that element starts to define the party, then it’s trouble.
The people who think not raising the debt ceiling will not cause a default, or that a default on the nation’s debt would not create a massive global economic problem are not conservatives. Nor do they reflect anything in the Republican Party platform. They are either ill-informed about basic economics or are simply ready to win a war by dropping the fiscal equivalent of an atomic bomb. There is nothing conservative about that, and it’s an insult to the genuine conservatives on the Hill to characterize it as such.
Then we have folks like Don Yelton, the (now former) precinct chair of Buncombe County in North Carolina. Yelton gave an interview for The Daily Show in which he defended North Carolina’s new voter ID law – not because it won’t disenfranchise voters, Yelton suggested, but because he simply doesn’t care about the people who might not be able to vote. He told the Comedy Central show:
The law is going to kick the Democrats in the butt. If it hurts a bunch of college kids too lazy to get up off their bohonkas and go get a photo ID, so be it. If it hurts the whites, so be it. If it hurts a bunch of lazy blacks that want the government to give them everything, so be it.
The North Carolina GOP, to its credit, asked for Yelton to step down, calling his comments “completely inappropriate and highly offensive.” Yelton did resign.
The GOP can’t ask tea party members to step down (nor should it – it’s up to the voters who gets elected to office). But the party can make it clear that racism or serial intransigence or failure to recognize economic reality are not conservative values. No tent needs to be big enough for people like Yelton.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, October 25, 2013
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