John Boehner

After Tempers Flare, GOP Tries to Smooth Over Differences

Susan Crabtree | July 27, 2011, 4:09PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

House GOP leaders spent Wednesday afternoon trying to smooth over deep divisions in their party that erupted into public view after a heated conference meeting in which Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (OH) was dressed down for an aide's attacks on Speaker John Boehner's (OH) debt-limit proposal.

During the morning meeting, Jordan professed not to know about his top staffer's e-mails to outside conservative groups complaining about Boehner's proposal and urging the groups to launch coordinated assaults on the plan and its lack of a balanced budget component.

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Republicans

The Wild Right Wing Budget House Republicans Almost Passed By Accident

Brian Beutler | April 18, 2011, 10:08AM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Republicans were caught with their pants down Friday when Democrats pulled a fast one on the House floor. In the lead up to a vote on their controversial budget, Republicans nearly zapped it and replaced it with an even more conservative 10-year vision for the country -- the right-wing Republican Study Committee's budget alternative.

To recap, Democrats took a flyer.

They waited until the last minute, and then voted "present" on the RSC plan. That put the question of whether to swap out Paul Ryan's plan for the RSC's in GOP hands. At the last moment, Republicans realized that a majority of their party had voted for the farther-reaching budget and had to whip votes backwards to prevent it from passing accidentally. It was quite a scene.

But what exactly were they voting on? What does a majority of the House Republican caucus secretly want to do that the budget they ultimately passed doesn't accomplish?

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Steny Hoyer

How Democrats Railroaded Republicans Into Almost Passing A Budget Too Conservative For Them

Brian Beutler | April 15, 2011, 3:56PM

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

When House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) heard Republicans were going to hold a vote on the extremely conservative Republican Study Committee budget, a lightbulb turned on in his head.

"I thought to myself the Republican leadership is probably thinking we're going to defeat it for them," Hoyer told me in a phone interview Friday. "I said to myself I'm not interested in seeing that happen. I want the Republicans to show what they believe. And if a majority of them believe that that's the kind of budget [they want] the American people need to know that."

The RSC is a very large bloc of conservative Republican House members. They introduced a 10-year plan for America that makes the already far-reaching House budget look fairly moderate. It was supposed to be a symbolic vote -- one that allowed conservative members to go on the record in support of slashing $9 trillion in spending knowing full well it would never be adopted as the official position of the House and the Republican Party. Hoyer figured them out.

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Republicans

Pandemonium! Dems Jam Republicans With Even More Conservative Budget

Brian Beutler | April 15, 2011, 12:29PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

What was supposed to be a routine vote in the House -- to knock down an amendment authored by conservative Republicans -- turned into pandemonium on the House floor Friday, as Democrats tried to jam the plan through, and hang it around the GOP's necks.

The vote was on the Republican Study Committee's alternative budget -- a radical plan that annihilates the social contract in America by putting the GOP budget on steroids. Deeper tax cuts for the wealthy, more severe entitlement rollbacks.

Normally something like that would fail by a large bipartisan margin in either the House or the Senate. Conservative Republicans would vote for it, but it would be defeated by a coalition of Democrats and more moderate Republicans. But today that formula didn't hold. In an attempt to highlight deep divides in the Republican caucus. Dems switched their votes -- from "no" to "present."

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Spending

Dem Reps. Counter GOP Narrative That Cutting Spending Creates Jobs

Brian Beutler | February 8, 2011, 9:48AM

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)

Without a whimper, Democrats have allowed Republicans to build the reality that, in the current economic environment, government spending costs jobs, while austerity creates jobs. While Republicans tout a "cut and grow" Congress, most Democrats are running away from the idea that spending can do any good at all.

Not all of them though. In a "Dear Colleague" letter, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) is trying to build opposition among his colleagues to the Republican Study Committee's call for dramatic spending cuts on the grounds that they will lead to major job losses.

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Spending

Democrats Say House-Proposed Spending Limits "Unworkable"

Brian Beutler | February 3, 2011, 2:00PM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) with Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Charles Schumer (D-NY)

On Thursday, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduced new limits on spending to fund the government through the end of September. The proposal itself falls a bit short of the GOP pledge to slash spending by $100 billion, on a prorated basis, this fiscal year. But already Senate Democrats are warning Republicans that they'd better willing to negotiate toward the center, or they'll risk a government shutdown.

Indeed, top Democrats addressed reporters about the GOP proposal Thursday afternoon. They criticized the GOP's approach, and its leadership, for not taking a government shutdown off the table. They even brought Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) old economic adviser -- and Moody's chief economist -- Mark Zandi to the podium to buttress their case: a government shutdown would harm the economy, spending should not be cut dramatically right now, and the standoff should be resolved quickly.

"The chairman of the [House] Budget Committee today -- today -- sent us something more draconian than we originally anticipated," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said. He called Ryan's plan "unworkable."

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Spending

CT House GOP Candidate Wants Spending At 1998 Levels (VIDEO)

Brian Beutler | January 27, 2011, 11:13AM

Justin Bernier

The GOP's game of "no I want to cut spending more!" continues to swirl down toward zero.

Meet Justin Bernier, of Connecticut's fifth congressional district. He's outdoing John Boehner ('08 levels), the Republican Study Committee ('06 levels) and Rand Paul (who hasn't set a long-term mark but wants to slash spending by half a trillion dollars almost overnight) in these sweepstakes.

He wants to bring federal spending down to its 1998 levels, a drop that would constitute about a 57 percent reduction.

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Republican Study Committee

Controversial Conservative Spending Cut Plan Divides Republicans

Brian Beutler | January 26, 2011, 10:05AM

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Down to its smallest details, the Republican Study Committee's spending cut proposal exposes real rifts in the Republican party. While the GOP's basically fine with slashing arts funding, a lot of the items in that budget -- meant to imply liberal profligacy -- actually have significant Republican support.

For instance, the RSC plan would slash $150 million in spending on Essential Air Service -- a government program, which ensures small and rural communities continue to receive commercial airline service.

Flash back to 2007, and possible Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) spearheaded an effort to restore such service to his constituents. "I am encouraged by the Senate's action to move this important legislation. Essential Air Service is just that, essential. It is essential to the people it serves and it is essential that the House of Representatives pass this legislation without modification so that we can restore commercial air service for Brookings," said Thune. "Ensuring access to communities like Brookings strengthens the local economy, provides consumers with choices, and makes the entire commercial airline network more valuable."

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Spending

Republicans Press Boehner Not To Get Squeamish On Spending Cuts

Brian Beutler | January 20, 2011, 5:12PM

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and John Boehner (R-OH).

Rank and file Republicans aren't happy with House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). They think the GOP should take a hatchet to the federal budget now, to make good on their pledge to slash spending by $100 billion "this year." And their displeasure is spilling out into the open.

"Despite the added challenge of being four months into the current fiscal year, we still must keep our $100 billion pledge to the American people," reads a draft of a letter to Boehner, obtained by TPM, being circulated by the Republican Study Committee. "These $100 billion in cuts to non-security discretionary spending not only ensure that we keep our word to the American people; they represent a credible down payment on the fiscally responsible measures that will be needed to get the nation's finances back on track."

The problem, as Boehner and Ryan have explained, is that they won't even get a whack at the budget until March, when the government's current spending authority expires. By then it will only be six months until the end of the fiscal year in September, and they're having a hard time squeezing a year's worth of promised cuts through a half-year window.

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House Republicans

Conservative Republican Study Committee Outlines $2.5 Trillion In Spending Cuts

Brian Beutler | January 20, 2011, 1:00PM

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)

Conservative House members on the Republican Study Committee, chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), have outlined a program they claim can cut $2.5 trillion in spending over the course of a decade. Like most major spending cut proposals, this one's not entirely rigorous. It relies principally on an aspirational spending cap -- specifically, limiting non-defense appropriations totals to their 2006 levels without adjusting for inflation. In other words, it punts the question of what to cut to future Congresses, which could just as easily bust the cap.

That accounts for nearly $2.3 trillion of the projected cuts. But the plan also calls for a host of specific cuts to make up the remaining few hundred billion dollars.

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Joe Barton

Dems Continue Calls For Barton's Scalp After Apology To BP

Brian Beutler | June 21, 2010, 8:19AM

Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-TX)

The next salvo in the tussle over Joe Barton's apology to BP CEO Tony Hayward will be Democratic pressure on individual House Republicans to join the call for Barton to relinquish his position as the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

"The question for every House Republican incumbent and candidate is simple: either stand with the people of the Gulf and American taxpayers or with Joe Barton, the 114 Member Republican Study Committee, and Republican Leadership in their belief that holding British Petroleum accountable is a 'shakedown'," says Ryan Rudominer, National Press Secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "For starters, Republicans need to answer whether they think British Petroleum apologist Joe Barton should remain the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee."

The two parties remain locked in a bitter political fight, which touched off last week when Barton became the face of GOP sympathy for the oil industry, with oil still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

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Gulf Coast Oil Spill

Say What? GOPers Slam White House Over BP Gulf Spill Fund

Eric Kleefeld | June 17, 2010, 10:18AM

(clockwise from top left) Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), Rush Limbaugh, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) and Rep. Tom Price (R-GA)

BP is ponying up $20 billion for Gulf Spill oil damages. And quite a few Republicans don't like it one bit.

The Obama administration and BP seem to have come to a solution on paying for damages from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, with the $20 billion escrow account to pay out damages to claimants. And since everything that a president does will get attacked by opponents, some Republicans have come out strongly against it -- with the sum total of charges being that it will turn into a political slush fund procured through dirty Chicago thug tactics that will be paid out to ACORN.

• Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) vigorously attacked the idea: "The president just called for creating a fund that would be administered by outsiders, which would be more of a redistribution-of-wealth fund," Bachmann said on Tuesday, also adding that BP should say, "We're not going to be chumps, and we're not going to be fleeced." Bachmann later backtracked on Wednesday, saying that BP should pay for all of the damages involved, but that the fund should not be "an unending pot of money."

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