House GOP's Plan: Vote Early and Often Against The Obama Agenda

A twenty day period of votes against the Obama Agenda, which of course are not effectual on their own (as Democrats still control the Senate). But they hope to both demonstrate that they're carrying through on promises to voters and force Obama and the Democrats in the Senate closer to a Tea Party view of the world.

Almost as soon as they take control of the House at noon Wednesday, Republicans will embark on a 20-day plan aimed at undoing major aspects of President Obama's agenda as they seek to take advantage of the weeks before the Senate's return and the president's State of the Union address.

The first move will come Friday, when the House begins the process of repealing the new health-care law. House leaders will then quickly begin to identify tens of billions of dollars in proposed spending cuts and to ease regulations that businesses find burdensome.

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Senate Republicans are looking ahead to a pair of opportunities in the next several weeks in which McConnell could re-create his role in negotiating the broad bipartisan deal last month to extend the Bush-era tax cuts. Party leaders said they hope to use the March 4 expiration of the temporary measure that funds the government, as well as the need to lift the federal debt ceiling above $14 trillion, to extract concessions from Obama.

The starting point for spending cuts will be in the House, where Boehner has established a goal of rolling back spending to 2008 levels. That would mean a reduction of more than $60 billion for the remainder of the fiscal year - a number that many Democrats consider politically difficult to achieve if Republicans exclude cuts to the Pentagon and homeland defense programs, as they have said they would.

$60 billion? They can do that. It'll take a lot of politics to force the hands of Democrats on this, though.

What About $100 Billion? Some are asking if $60 billion is reneging on the promise to cut $100 billion. I don't think so, but it depends on how you look at it.

I think what's going on is that the fiscal year is already like one third over and will be even more over when the Continuing Resolution runs out. I think it begins in October.

So they think $100 billion per year means $60 billion, pro rata, for what's left of this year.

posted by Ace at 02:33 PM

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