You Guys Know The GOP Isn't Going To Do Anything About Obama's Amnesty, Right?

When I first proposed the idea of not inviting Obama to give the State of the Union my hope was someone would ask Boehner about it and have him say, "that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard". Alas, Mission Half Accomplished, the dream is dead, Boehner is going to invite Obama to give the State of the Union. His reasoning is cute but meaningless. Obama won't shut up if he isn't invited. Hell, he'll talk more. If you're goal is to let him damage himself not inviting him would be the way to go.

But at least the GOP is going to fight on, right? Er...

Yesterday the House GOP passed their little sham "look at how mad we are about this" bill that has no chance to see the light of day in the Senate.

Are you not entertained?

Well, you better be because that's all you're going to get.

Next week the House will pass the FY 15 Continuing Resolution to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year which runs through September 30th of 2015. The question is...will this CR include funding for the Department of Homeland Security (which is responsible for administering the amnesty program) for the whole year or a shorter period of time (mid-March is the time being thrown around)?

Some, like Senators Mike Lee and Jeff Sessions want the House to add language to the CR that defunds or prohibits the amnesty program now and not wait until March. Honestly, I don't get this. There maybe some Senate Democrats who will support this defunding effort because they are scared after the midterms. But Harry Reid will never bring it up. He needs to be seen fighting this for his own reelection effort in 2016 when he may face Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval who won reelection last month in a landslide (with lots of Hispanic voters).

Why would you push this now instead of simply passing a very short term CR that goes until maybe the end of January? At that point you'll still have some scared Democrats but you'll have a bunch of new Republicans who ran on this issue and you'll have control of what comes to the floor?

If you push this fight now you'll lose. And then when the time comes that you might actually have enough votes to win (even liberals are worried about this) people will say, "This again? Old news. You already lost, move on".

An aside, why is the GOP pushing for a fully year CR that runs through September 30th of the 2015 in any event? They just won control of the Senate from the Democrats running on a promise to fix their broken policies. Why would you let Harry Reid and the rest of the defeated Democrats have so much influence over spending for the rest of the year? Why not pass a short term CR and then re-write it reflecting the promises you just made and won on? Oh right, the GOP isn't really interested in cutting spending and this is a way to avoid having to deal with the rubes for another year. Then they'll say, "We can't cut anything because it will hurt us going into 2016!"

Back to immigration...

I get one reason to push for a fight now is that no one trusts Boehner and McConnell to fight later. God knows I don't. But if you are going to push them to fight now, you can push them to fight in a month. Better to do it at a time when if you can get them to engage in the fight you might actually win in the end.

But of course Boehner and McConnell will be super tough come March. Right? It's not like they are trying to set this up so they can avoid a fight as long as possible and give them time to come up with another plan to avoid fighting about it. Nope, they'll be there for you....next time.

Or maybe not.

At a Thursday press conference in the Capitol, Boehner did not guarantee the House would vote to block or cut off funding from DHS once Republicans had control of both houses of Congress in 2015.

Oh. Well, maybe he's just being sly because he doesn't want to tip his hand to Obama. Yeah, I'm sure that's it.

Of course that presupposes the GOP wants to win or at least their idea of winning of wining is the same as yours. It's pretty clear they don't.

“I’m going to use my assets and resources in the new year to work with this Congress… to have a well-understood agreement about what the law should be, and how we as communities, and farm communities, and tech communities, create circumstances where we can have people be in this country and work, and where not one person is quote ‘thrown out’ or ‘deported,’” Rep. Pete Sessions, the chairman of the powerful House rules committee, told a group of Democratic legislators.

I'd be mighty upset if only a month ago I'd voted for these guys. Glad I don't have that problem.

Added: People seem to think I haven't offered a solution. I thought I was clear the short term CR/defund effort in January was the solution. I guess not. Also, I wrote a whole post on ideas on what could and should be done.

posted by DrewM. at 10:21 AM

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