Remember all the possibility of January 2015, with bi-cameral control of Congress and GOP promises that they would prove they could govern? Then, within a few short weeks, the House erupted into knock-down, drag-outs over an extreme anti-immigrant measure followed by a radical anti-abortion bill along with John Boehner's rocky leadership vote that foretold the fizzling of his career.
Well, the GOP is back—this time with executive control thrown into the mix! And now that they're revving up for their glorious run in 2017, the wheels are starting to come off the cart. Their biggest priority—repealing Obamacare—is already splintering, with an early plan to repeal without a replacement meeting resistance from the House freedom caucus. And in the Senate, perhaps sensing trouble, Mitch McConnell is starting to call on Democratic "cooperation" to help replace Obamacare. (Right, cuz Republicans have been such a big help to Democrats for that past eight years.)
Meanwhile, Paul Ryan's big dream of privatizing Medicare is also becoming a point of contention, with several GOP senators sending the message that it's a nonstarter for them.
Finally, they can't even get it together on Governing 101: the budget. They may indeed manage to pass a measure this week that keeps the government funded through early next year. But some GOP members are even questioning the wisdom of that, envisioning the squabbles that will surely emerge next year between defense hawks in the House who want more money for the military and the fiscal hawks who prefer the across-the-board cuts put in place by the Budget Control Act of 2011.
This isn't some minor proposition. Whatever Republicans manage to pass now will have a built-in deadline sometime in the spring, by which point they will have to reconcile with the sequester-level spending limits. On top of the hurdles in the House, in the Senate the GOP will need the help of Democrats, who will demand that spending for domestic programs rises along with spending for defense. Here's GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham on Monday handicapping their chances of rolling back the sequester’s 10-year cut in defense spending.
“I don’t how we buy it back without a real bloodbath,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham.
The GOP is starting to remind me of a couple that doesn’t quite get along thinking that adding a baby to the mix will solve all their problems. They had control of two chambers of Congress—if only they could just get the White House too, they could find a way to make it work!
It never happens like that.