“We have begun to change the way business is done here in this town. It has not been easy, and I think that the incremental nature of the progress is what frustrates so many on our side of the aisle,” House Majority Leader Eric I. Cantor (R-Va.) told reporters Monday.
Annual spending is down — in 2012 federal agencies will spend more than $100 billion less than Obama originally proposed — but many of the rank-and-file Republicans yearn to complete the dramatic overhaul of the federal government crafted last spring by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). That plan would have reduced agency spending levels to where they were in 2008 and dramatically recast entitlement programs, including offering private options for Medicare.
Even though Democrats railed against the plan and the Senate never took up the proposal, Ryan told House Republicans in Baltimore that he expected to craft another bold proposal this year. However, as leaders did with other issues, he tamped down any expectation of enacting his proposals into law, instead suggesting that he would create a “referendum about the American idea” for next fall’s elections.
“We would love to see if some of the ideas we have passed, to create jobs and growth in this country, can actually pass [the Senate] and we’re gonna strive for that. But at the end of the day, we’re going to kick this thing upstairs to the American people and let them decide,” the Budget Committee chairman told reporters.
Cantor acknowledged Monday that Republicans need to do a better job of explaining to conservative voters that they need to turn out again in November to sweep in GOP Senate candidates and elect a Republican to the White House. “There is not a willing partner here, and that’s a story that we’re going to have to tell: We’ve begun to change, we need willing partners to help us continue on that change,” he said.
That’s why so much of the GOP agenda for the next 10 months is about holding up a political mirror to Obama, trying to expose any failures of his administration. Boehner has instructed his committee chairmen to expedite all oversight investigations of the administration to highlight any policies or regulations that have hindered the economy.
“Listen, the president’s policies have made our economy worse. We’ve had 35 straight months with unemployment over 8 percent,” Boehner said Tuesday. “Gas prices have doubled over the course of this administration. And the president’s policies, again, are just going to double down on what hasn’t worked.”
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