Posted on 01/19/2013 9:14:11 AM PST by Alter Kaker
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – House Republicans appeared to be coming to grips with a stark realization as they returned to Washington from a three-day retreat here — they have a majority in name only.
The party begins the 113th Congress with reduced numbers and confronting a popular president and an increased Democratic majority in the Senate.
Preparing for a cascade of fiscal battles and a presidential push on guns and immigration, the House GOP is adopting a minority posture, hoping to achieve modest goals incrementally while serving as a check on Obama’s ambitious second-term agenda.
Republicans “have to recognize the realities of the divided government that we have,” said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the party’s budget chief and 2012 vice presidential nominee.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his aides have taken to referring to the “Democrat majority in Washington” in statements in recent weeks.
The stance is a significant shift from the party’s mantra in the immediate aftermath of the November election, when Boehner and other leaders claimed one half of a dual mandate from voters who had reelected both Obama and the House Republican majority.
It also represents a resetting of expectations for Republican lawmakers and voters alike.
Coming off what many viewed as a defeat in the fiscal cliff deal, and with Obama adopting a hardline position on fiscal matters, Republicans have diminished hopes of what they can force Democrats to accept.
Managing expectations in the years ahead was a major focus of the retreat, reiterated during listening sessions with leadership, members and aides said.
Instead of passing dozens of GOP-favored measures anathema to Democrats, House Republicans lawmakers intend to make a greater effort of sending bills to the Senate that Democrats would have a difficult time opposing.
“There was an element of saying, 'Let's be realistic about what we can accomplish, if we pass something that there's no way in hell they'll even talk about, what value is that?,” Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said of the conversation that took place most of the day Thursday between lawmakers and leadership.
“The value is — what we come up with is something that can actually be accomplished and so that's part of the goal — (given the president and the Democratic Senate),” Bishop added.
Bishop explained that given the Democratic-controlled Senate and Democratic White House, leaders made a point of emphasizing that “sometimes we get ourselves in trouble where we have an expectation level that is just unrealistic.”
That strategy was on display with Friday’s announcement of a path forward on the debt ceiling.
Instead of attaching deep spending cuts or contentious entitlement reforms to an increase in the nation’s borrowing limit, Republicans chose to use member pay as the string to attach. The issue is seen as a political winner, and both Democrats and Republicans have proposed withholding the salaries of lawmakers if the House and Senate fail to pass a budget.
A senior House GOP leadership source expanded on the Speaker’s intention of managing expectations during the three-day retreat.
“It's important that we set expectations to a reasonable level so that we're not over-promising, that we are actually under-promising and over-delivering,” the source said.
Since retaking control of the House in 2010, a number of conservative lawmakers have been frustrated with their leadership’s inability to deliver on repealing healthcare or enacting all of the Bush-era tax rates.
Many GOP lawmakers believed that they would win control of the Senate and White House in 2012 but that scenario didn’t happen. So, instead of reading the internal party gripes in the media, Boehner and his inner circle wanted to present the facts of the current situation.
And the leadership enlisted Ryan’s help to emphasize the political reality in D.C.
“As Ryan very clearly articulated, we're the minority in Washington, [so] how do you impact real change when you only have the House and you don't have the Senate or presidency? It's pretty hard,” the source conceded.
With Ryan’s conservative cache, leaders laid out a somber situation to manage expectations. That entailed telling rank-and-file Republicans no to “promise something you can't deliver on,” the source said.
“Boehner's never promised something he can't deliver on — but that doesn't mean some members expectations are way out of whack. We probably have a handful of members who think it's doable to enact all the policies in the Ryan Budget over the next two years, and that's La La land."
Following the extensive Thursday morning and afternoon sessions with leadership, one GOP lawmaker said that the House lawmakers were prepared to move smaller bills that may force action in the Senate.
“We're looking at doing smaller, more incremental legislation that is directly tied to must-pass issues such as the sequestration ... If you think about it — sequestration for the president is the same as the Bush tax cut expiration for us ... it's going to happen. It's in law and I don't think he's going to like those cuts,” Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) told The Hill.
I could picture the Democrats being where the Republicans are right now in DC.
They’d be fighting everything like militant lunatics. The Republicans just roll over and die.
This party isn’t worth a sh**.
Number one is not viable, most on this side of the fence are gutless. Number two is viable, but most on this side of the fence are gutless.
Not our boys, though. Roll over and play dead.
“Not our boys, though. Roll over and play dead.”
So in other words, Republicrat’s cunning plan is right on track.
Well, it's "The Hill" -- they drink the same water/Kool-Aid as everybody else inside the Beltway. It's not like it's any sort of an objective news source.
Yeah, they were guilty of passing grandstanding bills that got and got them nowhere last term.
But the also approved gobs of spending that they didn’t need to.
All they really need to do this term is not approve or pass bills to spend what our federal government shouldn’t be spending and they’ll be heroes.
We'll be holding our National Leadership Round Table call at the top of the hour. All of good will are welcome!
Retreat is a good term for this collective group of gutless, spineless, clueless elitist RINOs run by Boehner, Cantor, and McConnell.
These a**holes couldn't lead a gaggle of perverts through an Oriental cat house with a fistful of $1,000 bills.
Well, I think that we both agree that most on this side of the fence are gutless, but I don’t understand your assessment that option 1 is not viable. Why do you believe that?
Jeez...what happened to Ryan...he sounds like a complete loser now. The House of Representatives can wield tremendous power Constitutionally, but these current bunch of spineless GOP-E wonders (including Ryan) have absolutely NO will to do it.
Joe Cannon is spinning in his grave!
So I take it you did not vote for Romney? Who is to blame for Romney’s loss?
Yes...what DID happen to Ryan? He sounds completely defeated.
Well, lets see.
First: Romney. When the time came to hit the Dems with the past 4 years of Obama/Reid/Pelosi’s failures, he attacked his own base and candidates/supporters who followed the party platform.
Second: The GOP who spent tens of millions of dollar ssavoiding any web/TV/Newspaper advertizing that might act as a go-around to a heavily biased MSM...And instead used it to attack their base and candidates/supporters who followed the party platform.
Third: The Republican party voters who stood staunchly by MSNBC and others trashing people like Palin and Cain, using the very same words as those paragons of virtue to ensure the general public, who doesn’t consider politics a full contact sport, believed the BS and turned away from actual conservatives based on a lie for the sole purpose of ‘winning’.
And look what you won. People who through away everything they claimed to believe in, IE the people who campaigned for Mittens and trashed everyone who would not bow and scrape at his liberal BS, are now showing the unmitigated gall at bitching that they have a House filled with Republicans every bit as unprincipled as he was and who refuse to defend ANYTHING the party of Reagan once stood for...much less the Constitution and the rights it enshrined.
That about cover it?
And if you can show any actual FACTS that disprove a single thing I said, please, by all means, do so.
So, again, I take it you did not vote for Romney?
and, yet, your answer as to who is to blame for ROmney’s loss is: everyone EXCEPT those who did not vote for Romney, including yourself, I presume?
I ‘assume’ you can read and just chose not to. I also ‘assume’ you think a Republican who stands for the opposite of what I believe in is ‘entitled’ to my vote. I am not a Republican. The repub has to earn my vote. That’s how it works. If they don’t, then that’s their problem.
What a very liberal way to look at it.
Had the GOP ran someone to the right of Christie, I might have voted for them. But I will NEVER be held responsible for the liberalism of the GOP, Romney, or any one else that chooses to vote, campaign for, run as or be a liberal.
Now since you dodged my entire post, I ‘assume’ you cannot refute any of it. Of course you cant. It’s all true.
lol, Norm.....
Yes, I can read....it would make it rather hard to write if I couldn’t.
So you did not vote for Romney. You bear responsibility, along with many others, for his loss and for obama’s win. Doesn’t matter whether you like Romney, whether he “earned” your vote, whether blah, blah, blah.
In the end you chose not to vote for Romney. That helped obama win; that helped Romney lose....so, therefore, you are part of the reason Romney lost.
That is a fact..
OK, you might be able to read, but logic isn’t your strong suit ;) Your concept presupposes there were two candidates and we ‘had’ to vote for one of them. Neither is true so your argument fails the test.
When you can show me proof that I ‘had’ to vote for one liberal or the other when non liberal candidates were available (even as write ins), ping me. If it makes you ‘FEEL’ (like a liberal) good to blame me, please do. Aside from the fact that I derive entertainment from hearing stupid arguments, it might make the blamestorming you are wont to partake in less shameful.
The same men/women who don’t read the bills that they pass? The same ones that can’t articulate that the Dems have not passed a budget in 4 yrs; despite it being LAW? The same GOP that have already laid out a defense plan B of ‘3 more months if the Senate THINGS about passing said budget’?
I hope you were being sarcastic....But I was supposed to vote GOP, ‘cuz otherwise I was voting O? What is the definition of insanity again???
The current Congress couldn’t recite any damn passage of the Constitution, aside from them affirming their oaths of office to the same....
There are days I hope that the Dems win in ‘14, so a new party can arise when in ‘16 they f*ck up the country enough that people start to wake up. The GOP isn’t doing shit to stop the liberal/fascist path we’re currently on.
I do just fine with logic. You seem to do “fine” throwing around emotional word bombs designed to get a reaction.
You did not vote for Romney. You share in the responsibility for Romney’s loss. (That WAS my original question to you - who is to blame.)
They only have “a majority in name only” because they are cowards.
Go back and look at the crap the House, under Dems, did when Reagan was president and the GOP had the Senate. They had balls.
But of course, Bob Dole would give it all away...what a douche.
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