Petty Intra-Party Politics Dominate GOP Agenda
Speaker Boehner. This Congress continues to get things done for the American people.
Majority Leader McCarthy. …this Congress is more open, more productive and more effective.
Majority Whip Scalise. …Congress has worked hard to address the problems of the American people.
It is hard to believe they said it with a straight face. No one believes this rhetoric – not when Speaker Boehner told his GOP conference that he just "wants to leave" town, with American jobs hanging in the balance. The House Republican leaders may want to get a copy of today's POLITICOand take a good, long look in the mirror:
Can John Boehner's House and Mitch McConnell's Senate just get along?
So much for the one-party Congress advancing a unified agenda.
This isn't what Republicans had in mind when they took the reins of both chambers of Congress.
For the third time this year, the House and Senate are clashing over a major policy decision…
In March, the Senate spiked the House's attempts to defund President Barack Obama's immigration initiatives. In May, Boehner sent McConnell a surveillance reform bill and then skipped town – causing key provisions of PATRIOT Act to lapse for several days as McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) bickered over the surveillance law.
Now the two GOP-led chambers are on a collision course over transportation funding that will cause highway crews to shut down on Saturday…And though about half of Senate Republicans want to revive the Export-Import Bank, the House's disdain for the Senate's highway bill could force the export credit agency to be shuttered all summer.
And so, seven months into Republican control of Capitol Hill, there's still no definitive answer to this very basic question: Can these Republicans ever learn to get along?
"I'm not in the Senate conferences," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said flatly when asked about the gulf between the two bodies.
What a difference a few months makes. It was just in January when the two chambers were singing from nearly identical song sheets.
During the 2014 election, McCarthy promised a unified House-Senate agenda to prove to voters that the GOP can govern. When the two chambers gathered in Hershey, Pennsylvania, this winter for a rare joint retreat, the message from leaders was clear: To get on the same page, we have to keep expectations in check and recognize the dynamics the other side is dealing with…
"I don't remember that. It was a long time ago," deadpanned Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). Governing in tandem, he added, is "harder than it looks."
…This summer, the two chambers' leaders have been working behind the scenes to undercut each other's position.
The result is likely to be what usually happens when the two sides can't come to terms: Kick the can with a temporary bill and brace for a fall showdown on government funding and highways combined.
That outcome could bring major collateral damage…
The Republican Congress continues to be consumed by petty intra-party politics while the priorities of hard-working Americans go completely ignored. Time and again, they've put dysfunction, obstruction and distraction over working with Democrats seeking common-sense solutions to move our country forward and increase the paychecks of middle-class families. It's no wonder the GOP is seen in negative light among Americans.