Understanding Republican “Suicidal” Political Episodes
It wasn’t a great week for congressional Republicans, who ended up hurting themselves twice — they looked bad fighting to raise middle-class taxes, and then looked worse caving when the heat was on.
Jon Chait argued this week that GOP policymakers were so far around the bend, they looked politically “suicidal.”
The payroll tax debacle is now the third suicidal episode undertaken by the House Republicans since they took control of it at the beginning of the year. The first was when they voted almost unanimously for Paul Ryan’s budget, which was filled with grist for attack ads — huge cuts to Medicare, big tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulating Wall Street — despite it having no chance of passing this term.
The second was when they played chicken with the debt ceiling and turned a once-routine procedure into a white-knuckle game of chicken with the world economy.
And then this week, when they attempted to extract concessions in return for extending the payroll tax holiday, an anti-recessionary measure with strong support from economists, businesses, and voters. These are not just gestures. The right-wingers are really trying to off themselves.
I found all of this quite compelling, but it got me thinking about why Republicans, especially in the House, would be so cavalier about their own electoral futures. Usually, elected politicians want to win re-election, and take some steps while in office that voters will respect and appreciate. As part of the efforts that make it seem as if GOP officials “really trying to off themselves” politically, congressional Republicans appear to be making themselves less popular, almost on purpose.
Why on earth would they do this? I’ve been kicking around a few theories.
1. Republican lawmakers assume voters aren’t paying any attention. Politicians can get away with quite a bit if they think the public won’t know either way.
2. They assume Democrats, when faced with any pressure at all, will invariably surrender and give Republicans whatever they demand. That’s generally not a bad strategy, but it failed miserably in the fight over the payroll tax cut.
3. They assume the media will, under all possible circumstances, continue to tell the public “both sides” are always to blame for everything. This, too, is a pretty safe bet, but when even Republican media outlets turn against the GOP (take the Wall Street Journal editorial page, for example), this starts to fail.
4. They fear primary challengers. Under this model, Republicans know their extremism will offend the American mainstream, but if they’re defeated by even-more-conservative primary opponents, their careers are over anyway.
5. They figure major right-wing money — from the Koch Brothers, Crossroads GPS, assorted Super PACs, etc. — will come in before the election, destroy their Democratic challengers, and keep them in office no matter what they vote for.
6. They’re just nuts.
Why else would congressional Republicans take such breathtaking risks with their own electoral fortunes?
Update: Paul Krugman argues that I missed one: “reliable conservatives are assured of a safe landing even if they are defeated,” thanks to “wingnut welfare.” It’s a good point.
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, December 24, 2011
The GOP’s Slip Is Showing
Finally. After a year of artful camouflage and concealment, Republicans let us glimpse the rift between establishment pragmatists and Tea Party ideologues. There may be hope for the republic after all.
Forty Republican senators, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), joined Democrats in voting for compromise legislation providing a two-month extension of unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut. The bill passed 89 to 10, the kind of margin usually reserved for ceremonial resolutions in favor of motherhood. Senators clearly were confident that House approval would quickly follow.
But it didn’t, because Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) couldn’t get his Tea Party freshmen to go along. The result was a kind of intramural sniping among Republicans that we haven’t seen in years.
“It angers me that House Republicans would rather continue playing politics than find solutions,” said Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts.
The stalemate “is harming the Republican Party,” said Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
“Are Republicans getting killed now in public opinion? There’s no question,” said Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who urged House Republicans to just “get it over with.”
But Boehner hung tough, not out of principle but because he had no palatable choice. He didn’t dare bring the Senate bill to the floor for a vote, fearing that non-Tea Party members of the GOP caucus might defect. So he did nothing for four long days — and let the Republican Party be portrayed as so out-to-lunch that it would blithely raise taxes on 160 million Americans. The week before Christmas. As we roll into an election year.
The thing is, this portrayal is quite accurate, at least as it pertains to the Tea Party faction. More sensible Republicans have been so eager to take advantage of the Tea Party’s energy and emotion that they have essentially allowed the inmates to run the asylum. You will recall that it was the GOP, led by the Tea Party types, that threatened to send the Treasury into default last summer rather than approve a routine and necessary increase in the debt ceiling.
In the current imbroglio, nothing resembling a principle was involved. Boehner said that House Republicans wanted to extend the payroll tax cut for an entire year, rather than just two months. But even if you accept his claim at face value, it ignores the fact that the two-month deal was approved by the Senate for one reason only: to allow time for negotiation of a one-year extension.
In other words, the measure that House Republicans were so reluctant to pass, or even vote on, was crafted as a step toward the specific outcome that House Republicans claimed was their goal.
Boehner’s calls for compromise were absurd. The Senate bill was itself a bipartisan compromise, reached after tough bargaining and many concessions. Democrats abandoned their proposal for an income tax surcharge on those earning more than $1 million a year. President Obama accepted a rider forcing him to make a decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project before the November election. Republicans had already won the negotiation — until zealots in the House threatened to scuttle the whole thing.
McConnell maintained a steely silence until Thursday, then built a ladder for Boehner to climb down. He proposed that the House promptly enact a “short-term” extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance while working on a one-year measure. Within hours, the House caved.
This glimpse of honest debate among Republicans won’t last long, I predict. They’ll try their best to resume the practice of absolute anti-Obama unity, which has worked quite well for them. But no one can erase what voters have seen this week, and it wasn’t pretty.
There are only two possible reasons for House Republicans to behave the way they did. Maybe they are so blinded by ideology that they no longer care about the impact their actions might have on struggling American families. Or maybe their only guiding principle is that anything Obama supports, they oppose.
The week’s events offer a lesson for Obama, too. One reason for all the Republican angst was that public opinion has become more sensitive to issues of economic justice. This may be partly due to the Occupy protests. But I’m convinced that Obama’s fiery barnstorming in favor of his American Jobs Act has played a big role. People are hearing his message.
The president has been on the offensive. It’s no coincidence that, for the first time in quite a while, Republicans are backing up.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post,December 22, 2011
“Dear Leader” Boehner And House Republicans Cave In Payroll Taxcut Fight
This morning, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other leading officials from his caucus told reporters that House Republicans would stick to their guns when it comes to extending the payroll tax break. If Democrats wanted to avoid a tax increase on the middle class, they would have to cave and make Boehner and his cohorts happy.
Not quite six hours later, Boehner and his cohorts threw in the towel.
House Republicans on Thursday crumpled under the weight of White House and public pressure and have agreed to pass a two-month extension of the 2 percent payroll-tax cut, Republican and Democratic sources told National Journal.
The House made the move after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., agreed to appoint conferees to a committee to resolve differences between the Senate’s two-month payroll-tax cut and the House’s one-year alternative.
Reid, you’ll remember, made this offer on Monday, and soon after Boehner said this morning that the deal wasn’t good enough, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) endorsed Reid’s solution. President Obama backed the same approach shortly thereafter.
The House will reportedly make some technical changes to the Senate bill, and the Senate will approve that final bill by unanimous consent.
With nine days to go, it appears all but certain that the payroll tax break — as well as a clean extension of unemployment benefits — will be extended for two months. Between now and then, a conference committee will be tasked with working on a deal for a full-year extension.
What changed Boehner’s mind? Or more accurately, what changed Boehner’s mind again? The Speaker, as recently as Saturday, wanted to pass the Senate compromise and send his caucus home for the holidays. They rebelled and the leader quickly became the follower.
By some accounts, this happened again today. House Republicans —- Wisconsin’s Sean Duffy, Arkansas’ Rick Crawford, Pennsylvania’s Charlie Dent, among others — started breaking ranks after getting an earful in their local districts. GOP lawmakers who wanted to fight the Senate Braveheart-style came to the conclusion, “Maybe that Senate bill isn’t so bad after all.” When his members reversed course, the Speaker again took his cues from them, rather than the other way around.
If Boehner were a stronger, more effective House Speaker, this fiasco could have been easily avoided. He could have told his caucus this was a fight they were likely to lose, so passing the Senate bill quickly was the smart course of action. But he couldn’t — Boehner takes orders; he doesn’t give them.
It’s what helps make this story a disaster, not only for Republicans in general, but also for John Boehner personally. As he surrenders this afternoon, Boehner becomes The Speaker Who Has No Clothes.
He stuck out his neck, vowing not to cave, knowing he’d likely have to cave anyway. Boehner than waited until the pressure became unbearable — after he’d lost face and friends — and walked away with his tail between his legs.
Neither party has had a Speaker this feeble in modern times. His instincts told him to take the deal over the weekend, but Boehner allowed himself to be pushed around by his unhinged caucus, then get pushed around by Democrats, then get pushed around by his allies, then get pushed around by Senate Republicans.
How big a disaster was this for Boehner? Keep an eye on whether Eric Cantor’s travel schedule changes over the holidays.
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, December 22, 2011
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
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