obtain approval for the agenda with the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, K St. and Goldman Sachs.
Posted on 10/10/2015 1:40:18 AM PDT by iowamark
The House GOP caucus is in complete disarray after Kevin McCarthy, the favorite to become the next speaker after John Boehner resigns, announced out of nowhere on Thursday that he wasn't running anymore. McCarthy's stated rationale? That the House GOP is all but ungovernable ("They're going to eat you and chew you up," he said), with far too many members in very safe red districts who are pushed by their conservative constituents to make unreasonable demands in a system of divided government and in an era of partisan rancor.
But eventually, no matter how impossibly hard it is to convince them to take the job, someone in the Republican Party is going to be the next speaker of the House of Representatives. Here's what they should do, whoever they are.
1. Demand that Planned Parenthood be defunded
Republicans have maxed out their temper tantrum credit. But this issue is actually important. In my eyes, and those of millions of other pro-life conservatives, Planned Parenthood is a terrible organization. We have a political opportunity to save countless lives by crippling it. The next speaker absolutely should be willing to shut down the government over this issue.
But she should also be smart about it.
First, the new speaker should raise as much money from independent groups and those other shadowy money men to produce and air ads pleading the GOP's case. Because if and when the shutdown happens, and the blame game begins, you can bet the pro-choice media will be in the Democrats' court. But tough ads focusing on late-term abortion, and the shenanigans exposed by those secretly recorded Planned Parenthood videos, would be very effective with swing voters who may not be die-hard pro-lifers but who are still very uncomfortable with abortion. If the GOP plays this right, it can get a lot of people on board with defunding Planned Parenthood. And raising that money early on and quickly will signal to the Obama administration that the new speaker is not bluffing, that she's ready for a fight, and that she wants to win it.
Second, she should be willing to throw in a sweetener. Defunding Planned Parenthood should be paired with tax credits for companies that offer maternity leave to draw pro-life Democrats in and give some cover for the inevitable "war on women" attacks. At this point in his presidency, Barack Obama is interested in cementing his legacy. It might sound impossible to imagine him signing a bill to defund Planned Parenthood — but there are surely some things for which he would make this concession. For example: allowing the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill to go up for a vote in the House; backing a bipartisan criminal justice reform plan, like Tea Party Sen. Mike Lee's (there are others in the House); agreeing to reinstate the so-called Hastert Rule, which automatically raises the debt ceiling in order to avoid further debt ceiling showdowns. All of these happen to be good policy. And they also might be enough to get Obama to (very reluctantly) defund Planned Parenthood. This is how divided government works: Both sides make tradeoffs.
Finally, by going to the mattresses over Planned Parenthood, the new speaker will not only strike a blow for justice, she will buy herself a lot of political capital with the Republican base. Maybe less so if it comes with an amnesty bill. But the next speaker should be willing to forcefully make the case that defunding Planned Parenthood was worth signing up for bipartisan immigration reform that is clearly defensible on the merits ("We're not going to deport 11 million illegal immigrants").
2. Work on small-bore stuff that can make the world better
Get some achievements under your belt. Show you can govern. Get everyone on board. No matter how small. Something that can build goodwill. The ideas are out there. Even things as small-bore as legalizing raw milk, or slightly improving border security, or doing an efficiency audit of the U.S. government, or etching the word "JOBS" in bright lights on the Congress dome.
3. Pass popular stuff that Obama won't sign
There is popular stuff that Obama won't sign. Passing it would put the Democratic Party on the defensive. A 20-week abortion ban would be a good start. How about the Keystone pipeline? A resolution to have a bipartisan team of experts look at the likely jobs impact of the TPP trade deal. Killing the Export-Import Bank, and fighting other egregious bits of corporate welfare the Obama administration supports, like risk corridors in ObamaCare, or support for the green energy industry. This is just smart politics. Have the GOP be on offense from the center for once.
4. Come up with a clear, compelling agenda
This is the key thing. Tea Party Republicans are fired up, and they're right to be, but they don't know what they want. And yet, there is so much to do. The last time a speaker really changed things was Newt Gingrich in the 1990s. He had an agenda — one carefully crafted to appeal to both conservatives and moderates. Paul Ryan won so much goodwill and political capital a few years ago precisely because he has plans.
So what should the new House GOP agenda be? The Rubio-Lee tax plan would be a place to start. Wage subsidies. Expanding school choice by making it easier to start charter schools. There are a lot more ideas out there for truly conservative reform.
By doing this, the speaker wouldn't just pacify antsy Tea Partiers and win political capital. She would also change the conversation in the Republican presidential race by making it so that the Republican Party, again, has an agenda that candidates would have to define themselves for or against.
Until ALL Establishment RINOs are purged from leadership, there will never be any winning on Conservative principles.
obtain approval for the agenda with the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, K St. and Goldman Sachs.
Advancing juvenile opinion for lack of time?
What’s happened over the past couple of decades is that as a House member....you are running for re-election every two years. You live and breathe by a continual election cycle and getting not only voters to send you back, but the lobbyists to fund your campaign, and to get PAC action in your favor. Then you have to hope that the state legislature doesn’t go wild and redraw the districts to give you minorities or fewer minorities. Finally, there’s the issue of getting committee status and kissing up to the Republican National HQ’s, who sleep quietly with more lobbyists and agenda players.
So, you don’t really represent your district or state anymore. You represent the Republican National HQ’s, their lobbyists, and a bunch of PAC groups who want you on their agenda.
Half of the Republicans in the House don’t want to be the Speaker because it just means more funding going into their district for the next election against them.
All of this simply leads back to the system being broke. The Senate needs to be picked by the state legislative process...not by the general public, and it needs to be limited two terms.
The House needs to limit themselves to just 120 days of work, and they need to be forced to come back home for at least 90 days a year and talk to their people in the district.
If you want to be a fake Republican....fine. But the public in your district ought to know the fake act and fire you if they feel it’s fraudulent.
MARSHA BLACKBURN for SPEAKER!
While the MSM, including FOX continues to exploit the world of the minutia, the US continues into debt and is fast becoming a third world nation unlike Greece. Nobody in the media seems to care or want to explore the problems with our spending (ask the Democrats). Isn’t this how the Russian Empire fell? Seems that history has no idea of the coming disaster. We have become a 3 party system with 2 parties trying to purge the lone contestant and the outcome is not going to be good!
The ultimate loss of our Republic will destroy not only the agencies that they want to destroy and but will bring about their own demise. They are and will be foolish until the end it seems. Until both Parties stand up for the Constitution, I have little hope.
So, it matters little, at this point, who is elected or even if the Republican Party survives, the current method of US Government may not. Does generate news though.
In the meantime we are having a great news cycle and lots of wonderful stupid statements by most of the media that have no idea what is really happening. Could be a defining moment or just another crap session just before the end.
Everyone knows we’re just going to get another GOPe crumb bum. Probably Amnesty lover Senor Ryan. There’s at least 200 GOPe house members who were ready to vote for the lightweight, Rino stooge McCarthy for speaker. Why would they do that? Because they HATE conservatives and want to install another good ole’ boy and keep things (not) chugging along the way they are. Unfortunately, us conservatives have no vote for speaker and the house is full of liberal, Rino jerks.
In other words:
Adopt the Donald Trump platform
Here is a novel concept. Remember it is the VOTERS who send you back to the House.
#1AAA: Follow the law and pass 12 independent spending authorization bills (and do it in June), well before the end of the fiscal year.
There is a reason that Boehner and McConnell have loat the power of the purse. Every year, we come to the start of the new fiscal year on October 1 without having passed any of the authorization bills required by law for individual departments. At that point Obama demands “pass a continuing resolution to fund everything I want for the next fiscal year”. Ted Cruz and the Tea Party republicans in the house ask “Could we please just negotiate on one item X?” (This year it is Planned Parenthood). At that point, Obama, Boehner, McConnell, and the MSM unite behind the message “Those unreasonable Tea Partiers want to shut down the entire government over X.” And we pass another monstrous Continuing Resolution, which authorizes Obama to do whatever he wants for another year, with no negotiation with Congress.
That’s why the law mandates a process for passing separate spending authorization bills for each department. If we pass spending bills for defense and veterans and others in June and July, then when October 1 rolls around, if all that is left is the Health and Human Services authorization bill, the Congress can say “Either we take Planned Parenthood out, or the government keeps humming along without HHS and last time we looked that is all handouts to your voters anyways, so its no big loss”
It is so obvious that Republicans are going to lose the battle over an omnibus continuing resolution each year, that the only explanation is that the Republican leadership plans it that way.
A good leader will simply "allow" them to hold to their campaign rhetoric, and pass legislation emphasizing that.
It seems the word CONSERVATIVE has become a negative term in the GOP . Today it’s so hard to tell the difference from a RINO and the run of the mill liberal in congress .
Do you think we can convince the GOP-e to take the silver spoon out of their mouths long enough to get anything done?
The split between conservatives and the establishment is too great to be bridged by symbolic acts. It will eventually show itself when the real issues like spending and debt limit come up again.
The writer is certainly NOT expressing the Trump platform on immigration, which is his signature issue.
Man up to the jive punk ass magic negro.
Don’t be like a star struck little girl like boehner.
>>far too many members in very safe red districts who are pushed by their conservative constituents to make unreasonable demands in a system of divided government and in an era of partisan rancor.<<
What part of “representative government” does this a$$hat not understand. The thieves, liars and perverts selected to REPRESENT their constituents are DOING THEIR JOB.
So what if Congress is as divided as in 1861. It doesn’t matter, REPRESENTATIVES ARE SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THEIR CONSTITUENTS; NOT ADVANCE THEIR OWN AGENDA.
“Immigration reform that is clearly defensible on the merits (”We’re not going to deport 11 million illegal immigrants”).”
Of course we are. THAT is highly defensible “on the merits”.
BTT
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