CQ TODAY PRINT EDITION
Jan. 29, 2009 – 8:28 p.m.
House GOP Hopes to Continue United Front
By Alan K. Ota, CQ Staff
HOT SPRINGS, VA. — The Homestead resort is a far cry from the cruel setting of Valley Forge, but it is playing host to a battered contingent on winter retreat. House Republicans arrived Thursday in search of a winning strategy for coping with a popular Democratic president pursuing an ambitious agenda.
As they headed out of Washington, Republicans said their united stand a day earlier against an economic stimulus package (
“We have fundamental philosophical differences. We’re in an era of unfunded liabilities,” said John Culberson , R-Texas. “This stimulus is really a Trojan horse. It’s part of a plan that would turn the United States into France.”
“We want the president to call Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and tell her to work with us,” said Minority Whip Eric Cantor , R-Va.
“The president is a naive man. He is naive about what to expect from enemies of the United States overseas and about what to expect from the left wing of his party,’’ added Dana Rohrabacher , R-Calif.
Culberson, Cantor, Rohrabacher and other Republicans said a united GOP minority will force Obama — and possibly the House Democratic leaders — to take a closer look at Republican proposals. And if the Democrats refuse to make concessions, Republicans aligned with Cantor say their opposition will tell voters that the GOP stands for low taxes and curbing the growth of federal spending.
But Ross Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers, warns that the GOP’s swing to the right is risky. It puts Republicans in a head-to-head confrontation against Obama, his high public approval ratings and his bipartisan outreach efforts. In advance of the House stimulus vote, Obama, for example, made some concessions to Republicans, including deleting money for family planning.
“It’s bad politics,” Baker said. “They are betting against the economy. They have made a calculation that the stimulus is risky and might not do the job. But if it does succeed, they will not get any of the praise. Whatever happens, Obama will get credit for reaching out to Republicans.”
Regrouping for the Next Round
Nearly three months after a crushing electoral defeat, House Republicans already seem to be in campaign mode for 2010. They are even turning an eye toward the 2012 presidential election by inviting potential GOP presidential contenders to address lawmakers at their retreat.
The stimulus debate showcased the GOP’s strategy — a stone wall against Obama’s fiscal priorities, praise for the president’s willingness to meet with Republicans and criticism aimed at a Democrat who does not have Obama’s impressive poll numbers, Speaker Pelosi.
Pelosi fired back Thursday.
“We reached out to the Republicans all along the way, and they know it,” the California Democrat said. “They didn’t vote for it. But you know what? When you can’t win on policy, you always turn to process, and then you turn to personalities.”
Before the stimulus vote, a number of centrist and conservative House Republicans said they were undecided.
Among GOP governors, the split was even wider. Some, including Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, calculated funds from the stimulus package into their state budgets.
Some House Republicans said they are concerned that their “no” votes on the stimulus may be viewed as an attack on Obama or at least an effort to stymie his initiatives.
“There is a risk. I hope that the public will see that Republicans are ready and willing to act,” said Bob Inglis , R-S.C. “But it needed to be a collaborative process to get a better result. The danger is, we don’t want to be remembered like the line in that song from ‘All in the Family.’”
A verse from the 1970s TV show’s theme song, “Those Were the Days,” reminisces about an unpopular Republican president: “Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.”
But differences among House Republicans all but vanished before the floor vote. Republicans said they were angered by the Democratic leadership’s refusal to accept elements of a GOP substitute.
As Democrats were laying the groundwork for winning back the majority in Congress in 2006, they employed a similar hard-line strategy.
Only a handful of Democrats, for example, voted for President George W. Bush ’s second tax cut in 2003 (PL 108-27).
But unlike the 2003 vote, the House Republicans’ united opposition comes amid a world financial crisis.
Cantor said Republicans were unified because of Pelosi’s refusal to consider elements of a GOP substitute bill that was being developed by a working group led by Cantor and appointed by Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio.
Comments
The republican party is dooming itself to become a regional one, one based on an inability to compromise, an adherence to extreme social values, and on the use of extreme stands in foreign policy using only force to protect America. The party reminds me of naughty schoolboys who gather together to see how important they can make themselves by defying what others want. Their personal approaches to politics aka Rush Limbaugh are finally being seen by the American people the republicans claim to support. They are the problem, not the solution, and I hope the Great White Party finds itself minimalized in the next decade. It is truly a party of the past.
This bill is a sham--a christmas tree full of every lunatic leftist cause that has nothing to do with "stimulating" the economy. It's up to the GOP representatives to point this fact out because the press has totally abandoned any sense of objectivity--they are just cheerleaders now. In 2010 when the unemployment rate is higher than it is now (Maybe 10%) the people will know this was all a smoke-screen as Culbertson rightly said.
Nobama makes his partisanship just too obvious. He is bloviating and repeating the Limbaugh line without even trying to learn what the facts are. Pence's plan to increase tax cuts for the wealthy was already tried and failed. The idea among the GOP that they can simultaneously cut taxes and encumber massive federal spending was tried and failed by Bush's attempt to fight a war after enacting a massive tax cut. The GOP policies of borrow and spend brought on the recession. Continuing them will deepen and prolong it. President Obama has offered a painful and disagreeable plan, but the perilous situation he inheritied from Bush requires that we adopt it. Hopefully the GOP will clean house, side with responsible and principled leaders like Govs. Pawlenty and kick the scoundrels in Washington, D.C. out.
Chapman is absolutely correct. The Republican plan entailed cutting the TOP RATE to 25%. This is the same group of people who benefited from the past 8 years of tax cuts. According to Republican philosophy we should all be swimming in jobs because all those cuts trickled down to the rest of us !! I find it absolutely amazing that the Rebulican leasdership has been spurning Obama. I remember not too long ago seeing everytime these Congessional Repubs come out of a Bush/Cheney meeting complaining about how they were lectured to...not asked to give input but were the told the way it was going to be. Now they a President (from the opposing party no less) ,who at the very least was willing to listen to them, and ask for their input. They in their pettiness have instead turn it down and demand, even though in the minority, eventhough they put us in this mess, that the President follow their ideas.
And a united front is a good strategy why? Maybe it's because they all want to go down with the ship.
If the Dems don't know going in whether their plan will work, how will we know when the economy improves whether their plan brought about the improvement? Politics isn't about fact, it's about fantasy. What is at stake here is our individual liberty. One side wants to appropriate it. One side wants to preserve it. The choice is clear.
POST A COMMENT
Oops! The following errors must be addressed: