WASHINGTON (AP) — When last seen in Washington, House
Republicans were furious with their own leader, Speaker John Boehner, and angry
with their Senate Republican brethren over how the showdown over the Social
Security tax cut turned into a year-end political debacle.
The holidays and three weeks away from the Capitol have
tempered some of the bad feelings, but several GOP lawmakers' emotions are still
raw as Congress returns for a 2012 session certain to be driven by
election-year politics and fierce fights over the size and scope of government
and its taxing, spending and borrowing practices.
In the week before Christmas, House Republicans revolted against
the Senate-passed deal to extend the payroll tax cut for two months for 160
million workers and ensure jobless benefits for millions more long-term
unemployed. Facing intense political pressure, Boehner, R-Ohio, caved, daring
tea partyers and other dissenters to challenge his decision to pass the
short-term plan without a roll-call vote. None stepped forward to stop him.
"A lot of us who went into battle turned around and no
one was behind us," freshman Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., said last week,
sounding like the fight was still fresh and insistent that leadership had
abandoned them.
"A lot of us are still smarting," he added.
The two-month extension that Senate Republican and
Democratic leaders Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid had characterized as a draw
ended up as a big victory for President Barack Obama at the end of a year in
which Republicans had forced him to accept a series of spending cuts.
Grievances are certain to be aired at a House GOP retreat in
Baltimore later this week. The strategy and agenda session also will be a gripe
session for some of the 242 House Republicans.
"It might be a little more spunky than normal,"
said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.
Senators come back to Capitol Hill on Jan. 23.
The wave of Republicans who lifted the GOP to the House
majority in the 2010 elections emerged from their first year frustrated by the
limitations of divided government and the recurring, down-to-the-wire fights
over spending — in April, the squabble was over keeping the government
operating, and in August lawmakers dueled over increasing the nation's
borrowing authority. And at year's end, there was another rhetorical shoot-out
over keeping the government running.
Tea partyers who came to Washington intent on deep cuts to
counter the growing deficit railed against the budget numbers and the
all-too-frequent fights.
"There was a Groundhog Day quality to 2011," said
freshman Rep. Nan Hayworth, R-N.Y.
Boehner, who frequently had to rally the disparate elements
of his caucus, was a bit bruised by the year's final act. Still, he remains
well in control of his caucus, with Republicans recognizing that any leadership
challenge or internal strife now would be politically disastrous.
In the coming year, House Republicans remain doubtful about
accomplishing anything more than the must-do spending bills and a year-long
extension of the Social Security tax cuts, unemployment benefits and a reprieve
in the cuts to doctors for Medicare payments. Congress faces a Feb. 29 deadline
to agree on a new extension, no easy task after last year's deep divisions but
politically inevitable as lawmakers would be loath to raise taxes in an
election year.
Uncertain is the fate of a highway bill and reauthorization
of a farm bill, legislation that could mean jobs in a struggling economy but
measures also likely to get caught up in the typical fight over how to pay for
the programs.
Republicans are pinning their hopes on November's elections
and the tantalizing possibility that the GOP holds the House, wins four or more
of the Senate seats needed to seize control and the party's nominee ousts
Obama. Controlling both the presidency and Congress would be a mandate for
significant change.
Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla., bemoaned the failure last summer of
the so-called "grand bargain" between Obama and Boehner for massive
spending cuts, the promise of overhauling the tax code and reductions in
entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. The bipartisan
deficit-reduction supercommittee fared no better in the fall.
"It's hard to see us getting out of the mess we're in
until there's another election," Rooney said.
The year of brinksmanship produced little legislation that
became law while approval ratings for Congress dropped to single digits. The
House passed 384 measures in 2011, the Senate 402, according to the
Congressional Record. The Senate had 24 bills enacted into law, the House 56 in
one of the least productive years in history.
Republicans are gearing up for Obama campaign attacks on a
"do-nothing Congress," ready to counter that many of their bills went
nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Top on the list: The House
completed a budget last year and the Senate did not.
Last April, the House passed a $1.019 trillion budget plan
that would have sharply cut spending, changed Medicaid into a block grant
program and transformed Medicare by providing voucher-style federal payments to
buy private insurance coverage instead of direct government payments to health
care providers. Democrats vilified the plan by Budget Chairman Paul Ryan,
R-Wis., and warned of the impact the Medicare changes would have on seniors.
Ryan is expected to unveil another budget this spring.
Mulvaney said the GOP is eager to push for changes in the budget process,
beginning with requiring Congress to pass a budget.
Adding to the uncertainty in a volatile election year are
the dozen or so House Republicans whose tea party purity about reducing the
government's reach often outweighs re-election concerns, making other
Republicans nervous as the party looks to hold onto its 50-seat edge.
Some have dubbed the tea partiers the "Braveheart
caucus" for their affection for the 1995 Mel Gibson movie about William
Wallace, who led the fight for Scotland's independence. Wallace was hanged and
quartered.
Copyright 2012 The
Associated Press.