Posted on 12/23/2011 11:59:40 AM PST by rabscuttle385
Freshman Tea Party Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) is incensed that Republicans caved in the payroll-tax debate, and is putting the blame squarely on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
“I don’t think there’s a revolt with respect to Speaker Boehner,” Gowdy said Thursday night on Fox’s "Your World With Neil Cavuto." "I think the license tag of the truck that just ran over us has Kentucky license tags. For the life of me, I cannot understand when the Senate is going to find something they care enough about to stand on policy and principle.”
Last week, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill to extend the payroll tax cut for two months to give Republicans and Democrats additional time to negotiate how to pay for a full-year extension, which both sides say they want. McConnell seemed to have an understanding with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that the bill would pass the House.
However, House Republicans, led by some freshman representatives who were voted into office on the strength of the Tea Party movement, revolted against the Senate-passed bill, saying the negotiation over a full-year tax cut should happen now.
But the conservative establishment, led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Wall Street Journal editorial board and former Bush adviser Karl Rove, turned strongly against House Republicans and said they were botching the politics by picking the wrong fight.
On Thursday, McConnell dropped a lifeline to Boehner, saying publicly that the House should pass the bill if Democrats agreed to name conferees to negotiate the full-year extension early next year.
The bill passed the House Friday morning by unaninimous consent.
“We can blame Speaker Boehner if we want to, but we were fighting an uphill battle,” Gowdy continued. “To have the Senate pass a two-month extension with the number of Republican votes that they got — I’ve taken naps that lasted longer than two months.”
Some have speculated that the payroll tax debate has irreparably harmed Boehner’s Speakership, and that he has lost control of his caucus to a Tea Party faction.
Gowdy did not dispute that notion, and he paused for a few seconds before answering Cavuto’s question as to whether Boehner should maintain his Speakership.
“We didn’t have a comment section to our conference call,” Gowdy said, referring to a Thursday conference call in which Boehner informed Republicans they should concede to the Senate-passed bill. “We typically do, where we can ask questions and register complaints. That wasn’t an option this afternoon. It probably means we’d still be on the phone call, if he’d opened it up to questions.”
Don’t go and bring logic and common sense into this. Too many folks are having fun blaming a single tea party freshman for not doing enough. Don’t spoil their self righteous party.
This is the same GOP who betrayed Newt, and threw him under the Bus. We had Clinton as good as impeached and criminalized and Lott caved in to the Senate Democrats walk-out protest, so the spineless Republican’ts dropped the charges.
Imagine a President Romney at the head of these losers!?
Speak up and not go along with unanimous consent?
Trey...what did you do to stop this?...oh wait a minute...you contributed to the unanimous consent.
Shut up...you phony.
>> If one congress person had objected to the unanimous consent every one of them would have had to come back to D.C. to vote. He could have stood on principle. >>
Yep, and a kami kaze pilot could decide to end his life in an attempt to sink a single row boat too. I guess you never really understood the concept of “picking the right hill to die on.”
This was not the right hill to die on. It was the right hill to fire a few shots at, which he did.
Besides making you feel better, what would that have accomplished?
It’s a free country, perhaps you should consider a run for office.
Hmmmm...no unanimous consent = stopping the Senate bill in its tracks.
I could not believe Republican congress people are so out of touch in being media savvy ! We got obama right where we wanted by making him accept Keystone pipe line and within the next 24 hrs, we just screwed it so bad that, republicans are perceived as the party which says no to the tax cuts!
They better go home and come with plans where they have alternate strategy for every scenario thrown by Obama and the senate democrats ! Because of these screw ups, I don’t want to see Obama getting reelected for lack of leadership from republican congress
No, it just meant that all the folks would have come back in from home, at the tax payers expense, and voted the same damned result - and this congressman’s career would be over.
But go ahead, continue to criticize the good because he doesn’t match your idea of perfection. Go ahead.
It might make him look like less of an empty suit. Look if you stand by and let something happen...you can’t try to curry favor with those who oppose it.
Fine...the GOP lost this one...but don’t jump out and say I didn’t want to support something....when you did.
I was wondering about that too.
now the theory that he wanted to support it is totally different. In other words, you are calling him a liar. Maybe you are right, but that’s an entirely different conversation and I would submit to you that the burden of proof for that is ALL ON YOU for this situation.
Every time I hear a member of the "old guard" Republican establishment complain about Newt I become surer and surer that I will vote for him. They seem to be in a full-court press to take him out of the game, and I don't think it's because he's too liberal for their taste!
Because he would have lost the vote. FWIW, the democrats need only 25 rino votes to win a vote in the house. And there are at least 25 rino's who would have voted against this and not threatened their seats at all because they are in rino districts.
It would have been a major defeat, in public, for record, and he knew it.
The dems control Senate and presidency and are only 25 votes away in the House.
They are taxes. They go into the same pot as income taxes, excise taxes, and the rest.
Like all taxes, some get some back, some don't.
I live and vote in Kentucky, and I do hope the Tea Party here can mount a significant challenge, but in lieu of the last statewide elections, stupidity seems to be winning out. We can’t even defeat leftwing Democrats in an otherwise deep red state during an extremely unpoplar Democrat president’s rein let alone uproot an entrenched Republican like McConnell.
Makes me wonder if a hill exists that any of them would die on.
They just passed a bill ripping the Constitution to pieces by allowing the Military to arrest an American and put him away with no trial and no rights whatsoever. If ever there was a hill that was it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.