Scott Brown

GOP Fractures Further Over Payroll Tax Mess

Brian Beutler | December 20, 2011, 3:23PM

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

House GOP aides basically admitted this to reporters yesterday, but it bears repeating. The reason they fashioned a Rube Goldberg-esque procedural device to kill the Senate payroll tax cut compromise is that they know they're now in political free fall on the issue. By doing things the way they did, at least vulnerable House Republicans can say that they didn't vote against a tax cut for the middle class.

This was probably the only way House GOP leaders were ever going to get the minority of their caucus on board with the vote. And if you want proof, look no further than the handful of Republicans who defected from their leadership Tuesday. Or, better yet, vulnerable Senate Republicans who are in cycle in 2012.

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John Boehner

Boehner Is Cautiously Optimistic He Has The Votes

Susan Crabtree | July 28, 2011, 10:30AM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is cautiously optimistic that enough GOP members had fallen in line over the last 48 hours to pass his debt bill. The plan would cut nearly $917 billion in spending over the next ten years, raise the debt-ceiling by $900 billion and avoid sending the nation into default.

While he didn't have the magical 217 Republicans votes as of yet, Boehner told his conference in a closed-door meeting Thursday that he is confident he would hit the threshold when the bill reached the floor Thursday evening, according to lawmakers who attended the meeting.

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Afghanistan

Bipartisan Group Urges Obama To Use OBL Raid As Example And End War In Afghanistan

Susan Crabtree | May 9, 2011, 12:51PM

A bipartisan group of eight members of Congress are calling on the Obama administration to abandon the nation-building effort in Afghanistan in favor of a scaled-down mission focused primarily on quashing al Qaeda in the wake of the targeted special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Reps. Peter Welch (D-VT) and Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), who chairs the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, want the Obama administration to view the successful mission against bin Laden as a model for U.S. counter-terrorism strategy as a whole. Welch, Chaffetz and a group of three Democrats and three Republicans sent Obama a letter calling for the end of the war in Afghanistan and a shift to more surgical, strategic operations to combat worldwide terrorism.

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War Powers Act

Angry Lawmakers Grill Gates On Libya And War Powers Act

Susan Crabtree | March 31, 2011, 1:52PM

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, got a browbeating from Congress today over the White House's decision to ignore Congress and forge ahead with air strikes aimed at ousting Libyan Leader Muammar Qaddafi and supporting rebel forces.

Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, Gates defended the administration's decision to intervene and retooled earlier comments that the U.S. didn't have a vital interest in the North African country after a rash of criticism.

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Afghanistan

GOP Rep: Republicans Are Turning On The War In Afghanistan

Evan McMorris-Santoro | March 9, 2011, 4:09PM

Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC)

A bipartisan group of House members are pushing a new plan to end the war in Afghanistan. Many of the lawmakers who spoke at event on Wednesday announcing the new effort have been outspoken on ending what has become America's longest military conflict for years, but one Republican, Rep. Walter Jones (NC), says the names on the list of legislators opposing the Afghanistan conflict are expanding on his side of the aisle.

"The number of Republicans is slowly growing," Jones told reporters. "There were 12 tea party-types who won election that we checked to see what their position was on Afghanistan and 12 said for either policy reasons or financial reasons we need to get out."

Jones said some veteran Republicans are also signing on to an end to the war, which has has been met with growing public discontent according to public opinion polls. "In time, they're beginning to say, 'I don't know what we're trying to accomplish, there seems to be no end point,'"Jones said. "It is slowly on the Republican side changing to [support for] getting our troops out."

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