BY ROB GARVER, The Fiscal Times Six years into the Obama presidency, one of the things we’ve learned about the current state of play in Washington is that if there’s something you don’t want the Republicans in Congress to do, there’s a simple and effective strategy you can follow: Convince them that it’s what the president wants. Once Obama embraced it, the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act morphed from an idea developed at a right-wing think tank and implemented at the state level by an eventual Republican presidential candidate to an unconscionable assault on individual rights. The cap-and-trade approach to reducing pollution was explicitly endorsed by every Republican president since Ronald Reagan until Obama endorsed it, at which point it became a socialist plot to ruin the economy. Now, Republican leaders appear to have decided that they might be able to use their party’s antipathy toward Obama’s agenda to help curb some of their more extreme members’ tendency to champion self-destructive policies. Case in point: the threats to shut down the government if, as promised, the president issues an executive order temporarily halting deportations of millions of illegal immigrants and issuing temporary work permits to some of them. Some Republicans have raised the possibility of refusing to pass a continuing resolution funding the government after mid-December as a means of making the president withdraw such an action. Last week, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) refused to take the possibility of a government shutdown off the table. On Sunday, though, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the Republican deputy whip in the House, warned his colleagues that shutting down the government is exactly what President Obama wants them to do. “I think the president wants a fight,” Cole said in an appearance on ABC’s This Week. “I think he is trying to bait us into doing some of these extreme things that have been suggested.” Two days before, Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) used a similar metaphor, according to the Associated Press. “Shutting the government down would only serve the president's interests and we shouldn't take the bait,” he said. The Washington Post said staffers for Senate Majority Leader-elect Mitch McConnell (R-KY) late last week were distributing a memo to the more conservative members of the party, arguing that the last government shutdown had badly hurt the GOP brand. On Fox News Sunday, the network’s senior political analyst Brit Hume fretted about the consequences of tying a government shutdown to protest of the president’s expected executive action. “It’s a total blunder to try that, because if the president were to veto the bill, a bill that would keep the government going, and there was a shutdown, it would matter – it never has – what the proximate cause of the shutdown was. It is an iron rule in Washington, exemplified many times, that if the government shuts down, the Republicans get the blame. Not some of the blame. Not most of the blame. All of the blame.” To some extent, the concerted effort to blunt talk of a possible shutdown seems to be working. On Sunday, multiple Republican lawmakers appeared on talk shows and said they weren’t interested in shutting down the government over an immigration fight. “Republicans are looking at different options of how best to respond,” said Sen. John Thune (R-SD) on Fox. “Shutting the government down doesn’t solve the problem.” Rep. Tom Cotton, the Tea Party conservative recently elected to the Senate in Arkansas, was equally adamant. “I don’t think anyone wants to shut down the government because that doesn’t solve the problem.” His fellow senator-elect, Rep. James Lankford (R-OK), also said he is not interested in pursuing a government shutdown. Even Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, one of the president’s most vocal detractors and a strong Tea Party conservative, was dismissive of shutdown rumors. “We’re not heading into a government shutdown,” he said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “Congress is going to stand up to the president,” he promised. However, he left it unclear what the response would be to an executive order on immigration. “Exactly what we do may depend on what he does and how he does it.”
"Six years into the Obama presidency, one of the things we’ve learned about the current state of play in Washington is that if there’s something you don’t want the Republicans in Congress to do, there’s a simple and effective strategy you can follow: Convince them that it’s what the president wants." Lol
Funny story...everyone from the rino leadership to the left and right wing press and beyond swore the 2013 shutdown was the end of the republican party. Fast forward to the recent election to see how that worked out. I find it amazing how easily the republicans still raise the white flag, even after such a victory.
to believe this trap crap you are a certified leftist or a republican moron. 1. lets look at how this amnesty deal plays out for those establishment candidates from presumable more mixed districts... If they republicans agree to amnesty they wont have to worry about a backlash from tea party voters... because they won't be getting elected at all within a few years. 2. Lets look at in from a tax payer point of view. Does anyone think its good for the tax payers and those with jobs to have 5 to 25 million more democrat voters? 3. Are these not the same morons who told democrats it would be could for them to follow the president's agenda? how is that working for them right now?
This article repeats a common mistake of the media: it presents ideas adopted by establishment republicans as reflective of the entire party. Cap and trade was an establishment idea, championed by investment banks who would be doing the trading. Once people took a serious look at it, it was clear it was a nonstarter, just another handout to Wall Street from DC. Most establishment republicans desperately want amnesty to pass. So of course they are against any steps to block it. They would prefer to be able to get credit with the Chamber of Commerce and their various business supporters back home who depend on a steady stream of low wage workers, but the main thing is to get it done. Look at how Boehner undermined Ted Cruz on the last shutdown.
People keep saying that, but I can't see how they would.... other than "which party gets political credit" for passing it... IT'S A BAD DEAL FOR NEARLY ALL OF AMERICA! (Of course, y'all understand where I'm coming from... I'd like for ALL ILLEGALS TO BE ROUNDED UP AND DEPORTED... REGARDLESS OF POLITICAL FALLOUT! Don't people understand that the politicos are DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY TRYING TO SECURE AN ETHNIC BLOCK VOTE?) Someone please enlighten me.