Republican Eric Cantor - Virginia

GOP’s rising star runs into a rough patch
By Molly K. Hooper
Posted: 03/24/09 08:23 PM [ET]

A rising star in the Republican Party has dimmed over the past week.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.), a politically shrewd up-and-comer in the GOP, has broken with his party on two high-profile issues. And the defections on last week’s AIG bonus tax bill and the Obama administration’s troubled assets plan have exasperated some members in the GOP conference.

The grumbling started when Cantor unexpectedly voted with Democrats last week on a measure to recoup the bonuses of AIG executives. Many Republicans called the bill unconstitutional, with more than half of the GOP conference rejecting it. Cantor, who has been labeled “Mr. No” by some Democrats, was one of only two Republican leadership officials who voted for the bill. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.) was the other.

“All the unconstitutional stuff aside, if you don’t believe in raising taxes, why would you vote to raise taxes?” House Republican Conference Secretary John Carter (Texas) said.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) added that supporting the retroactive tax cut “sets a terrible precedent, just terrible.”

But Cantor voted for that retroactive tax, saying that he didn’t want to “reward failure,” meaning the AIG officials would keep their bonuses if the legislation hadn’t passed.

Yet Cantor’s vote last Thursday now looks even worse to some of his GOP colleagues. AIG employees are vowing to give their bonuses back and Democratic leaders say their bill — even if it’s not passed — accomplished its mission. The legislation appears to be dead.

The vote last week was a tough one for most Republicans amid the public’s outrage over the $165 million in bonuses after the company received $170 billion in bailout funds. Most politically vulnerable Republicans backed the Democratic bill, but there were some conservatives other than Cantor who voted yes, including Reps. Dave Camp (Mich.), Joe Barton (Texas), Paul Ryan (Wis.) and Roy Blunt (Mo.), who is running for the Senate.

A Republican legislator said, “Some members wanted to stick it to AIG — bonuses and recipients — but at some point in time your obligation is to stand in front of the mob and say, ‘Look, we’re going in the wrong direction, let’s think about this.’ ”

Another Republican suggested more members might have voted no if Cantor had.

The GOP legislator who rejected the Democratic bill said sarcastically, “When your whip votes against you, it’s kind of tough to whip for it.”

Cantor’s colleagues in leadership called the bill “a sham.” Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said that it was “more than an attempt to cover someone’s rear end because of the political damage that’s out there.”

Boehner told reporters last Thursday that he did not know how Cantor was going to vote on the bill. Boehner voted no early on, while Cantor waited until late to register his vote of yes.

But a leadership aide privy to conversations among GOP leaders said that in the end, Cantor “got spooked.”

Throughout his career, Cantor has made many wise political moves as he climbed the leadership ladder. Some thought he could have supplanted Boehner as GOP leader this year, but Cantor opted to be patient and easily claimed the No. 2 GOP post in the House.

Cantor remains quite popular among his Republican peers, though his handling of the AIG bill has some members believing he has more to learn before he can helm the GOP conference.

Boehner attempted to downplay the significance of Cantor’s vote in favor of the Democratic measure.

Their relationship has been strained at times, most notably earlier this year when Boehner initially indicated Cantor was not whipping against the economic stimulus bill that passed the House. Boehner subsequently backtracked on that claim.

Cantor this week adopted a position on Obama’s plan to buy troubled assets from banks that is at odds with that of other GOP leaders on Capitol Hill.

The 45-year-old lawmaker issued a statement that excoriated the administration’s proposal.

Meanwhile, Wall Street and Republican leaders in the Senate embraced the plan as the Dow Jones Industrial Average spiked nearly 7 percent.

Cantor called it a “shell game that hides the true cost of the program from the taxpayers that will be asked to pay for it.”

The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee labeled it “a genuine and sincere effort.”

Boehner distanced himself from Cantor’s characterization of the assets initiative.

Boehner told reporters on Tuesday that Republicans were going to take a wait-and-see approach before offering an alternative.

“We’ll wait for more details before we prescribe what we think would be a better solution,” Boehner said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Monday that he was willing to “give the secretary of the Treasury credit for finally turning to the real issue here.”

Cantor spokesman Rob Collins said the AIG vote was a vote of conscience, dismissing the notion that the lawmaker's position has hampered his leadership of House Republicans.

"On critical issues like the stimulus and the upcoming budget vote, members on both sides of the aisle know that Cantor is a tireless advocate for common sense policies that rejects the partisan extremism we have seen from the Democrats," said Collins.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/gops-rising-star-runs-into-a-rough-patch-2009-03-24.html

 

Seems to me that Cantor was right on both votes. The tax plan was a rebuke of the way the entire AIG situation had been handled. of course, it was a bit unfair to the AIG employees who had been promised the money and who had nothing to do with the blowup. At the same time, they worked for a company that would have been bankrupt if the taxpayers had not shelled out billions. For them to expect to go on like nothing had happened and collect huge bonuses was unrealistic. They work fo rthe government now, not a hedge fund.

The latest Geithner plan to shovel taxpayer money into banks and hedge funds no doubt is very popular on Wall Street and therefore among their lackeys in the republican conference. It is less obvious why ordinary taxpayers would favor it.

I find it amusing that one of the few guys in the republican party showing leadership is being attacked by the same old crowd that failed when they were in charge.

 

Showing leadership???

He hasn't proposed any plan of his own.
All he has done is chirp away at Geithner and play the "blame" game . . . In the meantime, he just voted to raise taxes from 35% to 90% on a specific group of people. Totally unconstitutional.

If Cantor really was a leader he'd be presenting his own Budget to his Republican Party and others . . . but of course, he has not. He just runs around sniping at everyone.

Cantor is a joke.