Really, things in Washington just couldn't be going any better. Happy, happy, happy says House Speaker Paul Ryan, in the talking points he forced on all his members who aren't too afraid to face the public during this congressional recess.
In a document sent to all House Republicans and obtained by The Huffington Post, the House GOP conference offers some tips on how to frame the past few less-than-spectacular months.
"Republicans promised the American people we'd have an aggressive agenda, and we do," the document begins, in an over-promise/under-deliver tone that Republicans are probably familiar with at this point. "Using the Congressional Review Act (CRA), we're working every day with President Trump to roll back harmful Obama-era regulations―more than any other time in history―so we can grow our economy and create jobs."
That's an interesting way of defining an "aggressive" agenda. It seems more like undoing than actually doing. Particularly when the doing has been so, shall we say, challenging?
On the failed efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, the talking points explain that Republicans still have every intention to get a bill through both chambers and across Trump's desk.
"This is the legislative process at work," the talking points explain, going on to mention the "bottom-up approach" to the health care bill that Republicans embraced―the one where Republicans didn't hold a hearing with a single witness, had leaders write a bill in secret, and then literally hid the legislation from members so they couldn't read it.
That doesn't sound like much of an achievement, does it? And really, are the members themselves even buying this load of crap? They're going to say this out loud to their constituents, even after everyone saw the meltdown happen? Well, they can gloss over that part to talk about the other stuff that they're going to maybe do—whenever they manage to get back to work.
On another topic of future achievements, the talking points offer some thoughts on infrastructure. But this is not your president's idea of an infrastructure bill. Instead of a $1 trillion overhaul, members are instructed to talk about a complicated federal permitting process that Republicans will supposedly have a "plan" to address by summer.
As Republicans note, many of those permits have to do with assessing the environmental impact of various projects.
"While we are strong proponents of the environment," the talking points claim, "spending tens of millions of dollars on documents that provide no tangible environmental benefit is extraordinarily inefficient."
They'll get laughed out of town if they try that line with their newly fired-up constituents, so they'll have to move on to the stuff that they haven't done at all.
"President Trump promised a ‘truly great' choice for the Supreme Court, and with Justice Neil Gorsuch, he followed through," the talking points say. Again, Gorsuch's confirmation was carried out in the Senate, not the House.
Maybe no one will notice that it's not actually something the House did, since it doesn't have a vote on Supreme Court nominees. Hope springs eternal. And in case you're wondering, no, there isn't anything in the talking points about special elections in Kansas or Georgia or Montana. They don't even want to have to think about that.