Republicans came into their annual retreat at Williamsburg, Virginia looking for a starting point in the upcoming debt and budget battles. It appears that they have emerged from the retreat with a full blown plan. They will pass a bill this week that will suspend the debt ceiling law until May 18. The debt limit increase will be tied to a requirement that the Senate | Read More »
Here’s a not-so-bold prediction: Congress will vote to spend more money today than it will cut over 10 years from any grand deal. Later today, the House will consider the additional $50 billion in Sandy aid in two parts (they already passed another $9.7 billion two weeks ago). The House will first try to pass a bill (H.R. 152) to provide about $17 billion to | Read More »
In the field of politics, you either drive the narrative or become a victim of the narrative. Unfortunately, for most of the 112th Congress, the GOP-controlled House abdicated their power and became a victim of the political narrative driven by Obama and the Democrat Senate. Over the past two years, the House has been in recess almost every other week. Additionally, a large chunk of | Read More »
In one of the last votes of 2012, the Senate passed Obama’s bloated Sandy “relief” bill (H.R. 1) 62-32. The $60.4 billion price tag makes this the most expensive disaster aid bill on record. It’s full of special interest projects that have nothing to do with the emergency, as witnessed by the fact that 64% of the funds will not be spent until FY 2015. | Read More »
With much drama and suspense, John Boehner was reelected as Speaker of the House today by the slimmest of margins. The entire focus of the vote was centered on the brewing conservative rebellion. Ultimately, only 12 Republicans either declined to vote or voted for someone other than Boehner (Garrett, Bachmann, and Blackburn initially declined to vote, but voted for Boehner upon the second call), just | Read More »
Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No questions, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which. [Animal Farm, last paragraph] Republicans were ushered into power in 2010, buoyed by | Read More »
Well, we really stuck it to the rich at 1:39 in the morning. Whew, now we can breathe a sigh of relief. The 40 Republicans who voted for Obama’s stimulus bill had to swallow hard voting for over $100 billion in new spending just in 2013, but at least those of us who are not super rich won’t see our taxes increase this year. Oh | Read More »
In a move all too reminiscent of the passage of the ever unpopular ObamaCare, last night the Senate voted 89 to 8 to approve the so-called “American Taxpayer Relief Act” (H.R. 8, as amended). The deal was negotiated by Vice President Joseph Biden and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. You can read the 157 page bill here. It is very unlikely that any Senator actually | Read More »
The purge of conservatives from key committees last week was not a natural disaster. It was perpetrated by leadership with the help of the rest of the 31 members on the Steering Committee. They all need to hear from us. Let’s take a step back and analyze what occurred last week. It is not a normal occurrence for incumbent members in good standing to be | Read More »
Yesterday, John Boehner told his conference that he would be watching the voting records of particular members. Those who don’t support his view of Democrat-lite as the party platform will be kicked off their respective committees – just like Huelskamp, Schweikert, and Amash were axed earlier this week. Boehner and other members of leadership are repeating this mantra that the punishment of those members had | Read More »
Well, that was quick. After denying that conservatives were thrown off committee spots for ideological purposes, Boehner now admitted it in front of his conference, according to The Hill: Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) warned his conference on Wednesday that leaders are “watching” how the rank-and-file vote to determine committee assignments, according to sources in the closed-door meeting. Boehner addressed the firestorm over the removal of | Read More »
Yesterday, we noted that not only did House leadership select moderates to fill vacant spots on the top congressional committees, they made the unprecedented decision to banish conservatives already sitting on some important committees. All of the decisions related to committee assignments are decided by a Steering Committee. At present, the Steering Committee is comprised of 31 members, most of who are either members of | Read More »
Well, House leadership made sure to elevate like-minded members to leadership; they took care to co-opt the Republican Study Committee; they packed the Steering Committee, which chooses committee assignments, with a bunch of loyalists. Now we’re seeing the effects of those decisions. Maybe it’s because he’s intent on repealing Dodd-Frank. Maybe it’s because he wants to use his committee assignment to advocate winding down Fannie | Read More »
It’s not enough to merely elect conservatives to the House as rank-and-file members. As we’ve seen the past few weeks, it’s all about getting the right people into leadership and important committee assignments. Unfortunately, the roster of major committee chairmen is quite dismal, to say the least. Worse yet, it appears that the top 3 ‘Super A’ domestic policy committees will once again be filled | Read More »
Republicans in Washington are looking for ways to change the face of the party following their defeat in the presidential election. However, one thing that will not change is the face of GOP leaders in the House. Last week, John Boehner stacked the Steering Committee, which is responsible for selecting committee assignments, with like-minded stooges. He also gave himself 5 votes. Not surprisingly, there aren’t | Read More »
![[RS]](/t/img/logo-footer.jpg){kind=logo}