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| Nothing left of the Tea Party Caucus but garbage |
Voting in the spring for the tea party budget developed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who was Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate last year, was one thing. But as long as a Democrat occupies the White House, Ryan's budget is little more than a nonbinding wish list-- cutting Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps and slashing budgets for domestic agencies funded annually through appropriations bills.Bachmann-- "We're not the mouthpiece... We are the receptacle"-- is still the head of the House Tea Party Caucus but many members have left and the caucus isn't as powerful inside the House GOP as it once was. It hasn't even met once in the last year. This is the garbage left in the Caucus:
Many tenured Republicans, particularly members of the House Appropriations Committee, have viewed Ryan's sweeping cuts as unworkable all along. When more than $4 billion in entirely new cuts came to the House floor in the form of an actual bill for funding transportation and housing programs, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, confronted shaky support from less ardently conservative Republicans and decided to pull the $44 billion package on July 31.
That sparked a frustrated outburst from the committee chairman, Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky. He called for abandoning the Ryan budget and starting bipartisan negotiations that would provide appropriators with "a realistic spending level to fund the government in a responsible-- and attainable-- way."
"Attainable" is code for something that can pass the Senate and get signed by President Barack Obama. That's rarely a recipe for tea party fun.
The House has passed just four of 12 appropriations bills that are all supposed to be on the president's desk by Sept. 30. The Senate hasn't passed any, though it also tried and failed last week to advance its version of a transportation-housing bill.
The four House-passed bills largely embrace Obama's funding levels for homeland security, the Pentagon and veterans' programs. The House has yet to pass one with significant spending cuts in the mold of the Ryan budget.
"When it came time for the general (Republican) conference to affirm the Ryan budget in the form of 12 appropriations bills, the conference balked," said Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga. "We need to regroup and say, 'OK, was your vote for the Ryan budget a serious vote or was that just some political fluke that you don't intend to follow up on?'"
On the night before the transportation bill was pulled, the House restored, with little debate and a voice vote, some money for Community Development Block Grants that had been cut in half to $1.6 billion, the lowest level since the program began in 1975.
Mayors love the flexibility of block grants. They can be used for almost anything, from sewer projects and revitalizing slumping downtown business districts to paying for homeless shelters and community health centers. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. stepped in with an amendment to add $350 million back. [She's running for the Senate, statewide and needs to come across as vaguely mainstream in the hope that voters won't examine her radical right record.]
"This program has provided much-needed help for our senior citizens, for road repairs and our homeless shelters," she said. "Our local governments need this funding."
Voices of GOP pragmatists such as Rogers and Capito had been drowned out largely since early in the year when Boehner scheduled a succession of votes on bills advancing Democrats' priorities and raising tea partyers' hackles-- a $600 billion-plus tax increase on the wealthy, a Superstorm Sandy relief bill and a liberalized renewal of the Violence Against Women Act.
Each of those bills passed the House in contradiction of a practice instituted by former GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert to only bring up bills that are supported by a majority of Republicans. Since then, Boehner has walked lightly and catered to the party's conservative wing when scheduling legislation.
The most recent squabble is a prelude of what's to come in the fall. When Congress returns in September, it has only nine working days to figure out at what level to temporarily fund federal agencies beyond Sept. 30.
The alternative is a government shutdown that only the most strident tea partyers want to use as a bargaining chip to "defund" Obama's health care overhaul about to go into top gear. GOP leaders like Boehner oppose that idea but have been unwilling to publicly condemn the effort.
In the Senate, the GOP's pragmatic wing includes John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Johnny Isakson of Georgia. They've been meeting frequently with White House staff chief Denis McDonough and other top Obama aides seeking ways to replace deep, nondiscretionary automatic cuts known as sequestration with gentler, more targeted cuts.
Graham and McCain are chiefly motivated by a desire to restore Pentagon cuts they say will cripple the military. Other Senate Republicans like Susan Collins of Maine are going to bat for domestic programs.
Of course, Congress could simply keep the government on autopilot at current funding levels, continuing the automatic spending cuts that kicked in last March. One veteran Congress-watcher says passing it in the 435-member House might again require violating Hastert's practice.
"What Boehner has done successfully in the past, is you have to write it to levels that actually get support in the Senate and get some Democrats in the House," said former Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio.
Some conservatives among the House's 233 Republicans may "then squeal ...," LaTourette said, "but if they're not going to supply the votes to get to 218 in a way that makes everybody in the (GOP) conference comfortable, then that's the strategy that's left to them. And I think that's probably where we're headed."
• Rodney Alexander (LA)
• Michele Bachmann (MN)
• Joe Barton (TX)
• Gus Bilirakis (FL)
• Rob Bishop (UT)
• Diane Black (TN)
• Michael C. Burgess (TX)
• Paul Broun (GA)
• John Carter (TX)
• Bill Cassidy (LA)
• Howard Coble (NC)
• Mike Coffman (CO)
• Ander Crenshaw (FL)
• John Culberson (TX)
• Jeff Duncan (SC)
• Blake Farenthold (TX)
• Stephen Fincher (TN)
• John Fleming (LA)
• Trent Franks (AZ)
• Phil Gingrey (GA)
• Louie Gohmert (TX)
• Vicky Hartzler (MO)
• Tim Huelskamp (KS)
• Lynn Jenkins (KS)
• Steve King (IA)
• Doug Lamborn (CO)
• Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO)
• Kenny Marchant (TX)
• Tom McClintock (CA)
• David McKinley (WV)
• Gary Miller (CA)
• Mick Mulvaney (SC)
• Randy Neugebauer (TX)
• Rich Nugent (FL)
• Steven Palazzo (MS)
• Steve Pearce (NM)
• Ted Poe (TX)
• Tom Price (GA)
• Phil Roe (TN)
• Dennis Ross (FL)
• Ed Royce (CA)
• Steve Scalise (LA)
• Pete Sessions (TX)
• Adrian Smith (NE)
• Lamar S. Smith (TX)
• Tim Walberg (MI)
• Lynn Westmoreland (GA)
• Joe Wilson (SC)
Of the 49 members, 31 (63%) are treason-minded Confederates.Thirteen were defeated for reelection-- like loudmouths Allen West and Joe Walsh-- defeated in bids for higher office or retired and another 4 still in the House just quit. The most likely 'baggers to lose their reelection bids in 2014 are Gary Miller, Mike Coffman, Steve Pearce and Steve King. Several others, including Bachmann, have announced that they're retiring from Congress. Domestic terror suspect and Texas congressman Steve Stockman was kind enough to point out a post at the Washington Examiner teabaggy website, The Republican Establishment's incoherence on government shutdowns, Obamacare, and the debt limit.
According to establishment Republicans like Karl Rove, it would be absolute armageddon for the GOP if conservatives pursued delays/cuts to Obamacare through the continuing resolution process. “Remember, when Republicans shut down the government in 1995,” Rove wrote at Fox News, “they had funded half the fiscal year’s budget including all of defense and still the GOP lost badly in the court of public opinion.”
FreedomWorks’ Dean Clancy has already addressed some of the factual errors in Rove’s post here, unfortunately many in the House Republican Leadership seem to have bought into Rove’s analysis.
For example, House Majority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., told National Review August 9, “No one is advocating a government shutdown... In order to avoid a government shutdown, we need 60 votes in the Senate and 218 votes in the House to pass a continuing resolution,” he explained. “To get 60 votes in the Senate, you need at least 14 Democrats to join Republicans and pass a CR that defunds Obamacare. Right now, I am not aware of a single Democrat in the Senate who would join us. If and when defunding has 60 votes in the Senate, we will absolutely deliver more than 218 votes in the House.”
Which is a fine argument. Except for the fact that Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is also on record threatening not to raise the debt limit unless Obama agrees to dollar-for-dollar spending cuts. On July 24, Boehner said, “We’re not going to raise the debt ceiling without real cuts in spending. It’s as simple as that.” “I believe the so-called Boehner Rule is the right formula for getting that done,” he added, referring to his rule matching new debt authority with spending cuts.
House Republicans can’t announce they are willing to surrender on Obamacare funding in the CR because they are afraid they will be blamed for a government shutdown, and then turn right around and threaten not to raise the debt limit unless Obama agrees to more spending cuts. There is no reason anyone should take them seriously.
If anything, a government shutdown is much safer ground to fight on. Hitting the debt limit would trigger far harsher consequences than a government shutdown.
If Republicans in Washington don’t want to fight Obamacare through the CR, that’s fine. But they shouldn’t then pretend that Obama and the Democrats should take their debt limit threats seriously at all.
Below is a video of Tom Cole, a very senior mainstream conservative Republican congressman from Oklahoma, being questioned by someone who has apparently pre-set Rush Limbaugh in his tractor. Cole is calmly trying to explain why shutting down the government, despite what the far right propagandists are braying about, is NOT a good idea for anyone. No wonder most Republican congressmen are avoiding Town Hall meetings this year. Is Cole even in the majority of his party anymore?
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