GOP maps strategy in wake of payroll tax debacle

DONNA CASSATA

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — When last seen in Wash­ing­ton, House Repub­li­cans were furi­ous with their own leader, Speaker John Boehner, and angry with their Sen­ate Repub­li­can brethren over how the show­down over the Social Secu­rity tax cut turned into a year-end polit­i­cal debacle.

The hol­i­days and three weeks away from the Capi­tol have tem­pered some of the bad feel­ings, but sev­eral GOP law­mak­ers’ emo­tions are still raw as Con­gress returns for a 2012 ses­sion cer­tain to be dri­ven by election-year pol­i­tics and fierce fights over the size and scope of gov­ern­ment and its tax­ing, spend­ing and bor­row­ing practices.

In the week before Christ­mas, House Repub­li­cans revolted against the Senate-passed deal to extend the pay­roll tax cut for two months for 160 mil­lion work­ers and ensure job­less ben­e­fits for mil­lions more long-term unem­ployed. Fac­ing intense polit­i­cal pres­sure, Boehner, R-Ohio, caved, dar­ing tea par­ty­ers and other dis­senters to chal­lenge his deci­sion to pass the short-term plan with­out a roll-call vote. None stepped for­ward to stop him.

“A lot of us who went into bat­tle turned around and no one was behind us,” fresh­man Rep. Mick Mul­vaney, R-S.C., said last week, sound­ing like the fight was still fresh and insis­tent that lead­er­ship had aban­doned them.

“A lot of us are still smart­ing,” he added.

The two-month exten­sion that Sen­ate Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­tic lead­ers Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid had char­ac­ter­ized as a draw ended up as a big vic­tory for Pres­i­dent Barack Obama at the end of a year in which Repub­li­cans had forced him to accept a series of spend­ing cuts.

Griev­ances are cer­tain to be aired at a House GOP retreat in Bal­ti­more later this week. The strat­egy and agenda ses­sion also will be a gripe ses­sion for some of the 242 House Republicans.

“It might be a lit­tle more spunky than nor­mal,” said Rep. Jason Chaf­fetz, R-Utah.

Sen­a­tors come back to Capi­tol Hill on Jan. 23.

The wave of Repub­li­cans who lifted the GOP to the House major­ity in the 2010 elec­tions emerged from their first year frus­trated by the lim­i­ta­tions of divided gov­ern­ment and the recur­ring, down-to-the-wire fights over spend­ing — in April, the squab­ble was over keep­ing the gov­ern­ment oper­at­ing, and in August law­mak­ers dueled over increas­ing the nation’s bor­row­ing author­ity. And at year’s end, there was another rhetor­i­cal shoot-out over keep­ing the gov­ern­ment running.

Tea par­ty­ers who came to Wash­ing­ton intent on deep cuts to counter the grow­ing deficit railed against the bud­get num­bers and the all-too-frequent fights.

“There was a Ground­hog Day qual­ity to 2011,” said fresh­man Rep. Nan Hay­worth, R-N.Y.

Boehner, who fre­quently had to rally the dis­parate ele­ments of his cau­cus, was a bit bruised by the year’s final act. Still, he remains well in con­trol of his cau­cus, with Repub­li­cans rec­og­niz­ing that any lead­er­ship chal­lenge or inter­nal strife now would be polit­i­cally disastrous.

In the com­ing year, House Repub­li­cans remain doubt­ful about accom­plish­ing any­thing more than the must-do spend­ing bills and a year-long exten­sion of the Social Secu­rity tax cuts, unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits and a reprieve in the cuts to doc­tors for Medicare pay­ments. Con­gress faces a Feb. 29 dead­line to agree on a new exten­sion, no easy task after last year’s deep divi­sions but polit­i­cally inevitable as law­mak­ers would be loath to raise taxes in an elec­tion year.

Uncer­tain is the fate of a high­way bill and reau­tho­riza­tion of a farm bill, leg­is­la­tion that could mean jobs in a strug­gling econ­omy but mea­sures also likely to get caught up in the typ­i­cal fight over how to pay for the programs.

Repub­li­cans are pin­ning their hopes on November’s elec­tions and the tan­ta­liz­ing pos­si­bil­ity that the GOP holds the House, wins four or more of the Sen­ate seats needed to seize con­trol and the party’s nom­i­nee ousts Obama. Con­trol­ling both the pres­i­dency and Con­gress would be a man­date for sig­nif­i­cant change.

Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla., bemoaned the fail­ure last sum­mer of the so-called “grand bar­gain” between Obama and Boehner for mas­sive spend­ing cuts, the promise of over­haul­ing the tax code and reduc­tions in enti­tle­ment pro­grams such as Social Secu­rity and Medicare. The bipar­ti­san deficit-reduction super­com­mit­tee fared no bet­ter in the fall.

“It’s hard to see us get­ting out of the mess we’re in until there’s another elec­tion,” Rooney said.

The year of brinks­man­ship pro­duced lit­tle leg­is­la­tion that became law while approval rat­ings for Con­gress dropped to sin­gle dig­its. The House passed 384 mea­sures in 2011, the Sen­ate 402, accord­ing to the Con­gres­sional Record. The Sen­ate had 24 bills enacted into law, the House 56 in one of the least pro­duc­tive years in history.

Repub­li­cans are gear­ing up for Obama cam­paign attacks on a “do-nothing Con­gress,” ready to counter that many of their bills went nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Sen­ate. Top on the list: The House com­pleted a bud­get last year and the Sen­ate did not.

Last April, the House passed a $1.019 tril­lion bud­get plan that would have sharply cut spend­ing, changed Med­ic­aid into a block grant pro­gram and trans­formed Medicare by pro­vid­ing voucher-style fed­eral pay­ments to buy pri­vate insur­ance cov­er­age instead of direct gov­ern­ment pay­ments to health care providers. Democ­rats vil­i­fied the plan by Bud­get Chair­man Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and warned of the impact the Medicare changes would have on seniors.

Ryan is expected to unveil another bud­get this spring. Mul­vaney said the GOP is eager to push for changes in the bud­get process, begin­ning with requir­ing Con­gress to pass a budget.

Adding to the uncer­tainty in a volatile elec­tion year are the dozen or so House Repub­li­cans whose tea party purity about reduc­ing the government’s reach often out­weighs re-election con­cerns, mak­ing other Repub­li­cans ner­vous as the party looks to hold onto its 50-seat edge.

Some have dubbed the tea partiers the “Brave­heart cau­cus” for their affec­tion for the 1995 Mel Gib­son movie about William Wal­lace, who led the fight for Scotland’s inde­pen­dence. Wal­lace was hanged and quartered.

Posted by AP News on Jan 16 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.