Hoyer Press Staff Blog
Blog posts from the press staff of Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer
While we’ve all been hoping for Republicans to take a reasonable approach to averting the sequester, it looks like it was just wishful thinking.
Here’s a headline we never thought we’d see: “House GOP: Pentagon crying ‘wolf’ on sequester.”
With the deadline to avert the sequester fast approaching, Republicans have decided their best strategy is to… do nothing?
The sequester was designed as an irrational and harmful policy that would force lawmakers to reach a balanced and bipartisan solution
With only 8 legislative days remaining until the sequester is scheduled to take effect, time is running short.
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments on the Voting Rights Act later this month, it’s important to remember that recent actions have made it harder for millions of eligible voters to register and participate in our elections. The New York Times takes a look at how lines to vote impacted the 2012 elections:
As the Senate prepares to vote on the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act tomorrow, a quick refresh of where House Republicans stand on the issue, courtesy of the New York Times:
A Wall Street Journal article out today offers a preview of GOP Leader Cantor’s speech tomorrow, and describes it as an attempt to overhaul Republicans’ message. In our effort to be helpful, we’d like to point out that it’s not (only) a message problem they’re having – it’s their obstruction and lack of action on anything substantive. But best of luck to him. And might we also suggest a few questions for after his speech:
We’re guessing Republicans didn’t enjoy reading today’s editorial in the New York Times, which offered them some harsh reality about the harmful effects to the economy if they left the sequester hit. It’s a pretty rough look in the mirror for Republicans:
We mentioned earlier this week that Republicans have started to accept sequestration, despite the devastating effect this would have on our economy. Apparently, it’s even worse than we thought. [Cue the horror music.] Even after Republicans saw GDP dip last quarter due to the uncertainty they’ve caused over sequestration, this news warranted little more than a shrug from our GOP friends. This CQ headline sums it up: “GOP Lawmakers Say Deficit Reduction Outweighs Short-Term Economic Blip.”
The deadline to avert the sequester is looming, so Republicans are working hard to come up with a plan to avert them. Wait, sorry. No they’re not. Per The Washington Post:
After yet another period of “soul searching” by Republicans, this time at their Republican retreat, it’s pretty remarkable that all they can come up to address their problems is that they need a new message. The Washington Post reports:
Republicans continue to float the idea of holding the debt limit hostage so that they can get their way on fiscal negotiations. Defaulting, as the President has warned, would hurt our economy, delay Social Security, Medicare and military payments, and could lead to a credit downgrade (again).
It seems like it was only last Congress that we were seeing headlines like these:
Today’s must-read is a Politico article highlighting Republican division and the difficulty they are having in setting their agenda:
This article from National Journal today says it all:
According to POLITICO, Majority Leader Eric Cantor said “We intend to avoid the fiscal cliff.”
A Christmas classic about to go terribly wrong: it’s time for House Republicans to hear the music and get back to negotiating a bipartisan, balanced solution.
A CNN/ORC poll out today shows that the majority of Americans find the GOP too extreme and believe they should compromise more.
A look at the morning news shows Speaker Boehner is having a tough time finding the votes he needs for his “Plan B”… or rather Plan C or D, or whatever we’re up to at this point.
Over the weekend, more Republicans joined with lawmakers like Senator Tom Coburn and Congressman Steve LaTourette in saying that higher tax rates for the top 2 percent of incomes will be part of any balanced agreement to avert the fiscal cliff. Senator Bob Corker said on Fox News Sunday:
More and more Republicans are joining the chorus calling for a balanced, bipartisan solution to the fiscal cliff that protects middle-class families while asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share through higher tax rates. As Dana Milibank says in his Washington Post column:
In case you haven’t seen it already, we wanted to pass along Sen. Tom Coburn’s common-sense remarks on the need to include revenues in an agreement to prevent the fiscal cliff. And by “revenues,” he means “rates.”
A new poll out today by The Washington Post and ABC News explains why a growing number of Republicans in Congress are racing to distance themselves from Grover Norquist’s tax pledge. According to the poll’s findings, 60% of Americans – including 63% of independents – favor raising income tax rates on earnings over $250,000 to help get America’s fiscal house in order and avert the looming fiscal cliff. As noted in the Washington Post :
While we know that Democrats’ future attempts to bring forward legislation on the House Floor will not come as a surprise to Republican leadership (spoiler!), we hope that they will surprise us, and actually agree to come back to work so we can find bipartisan solutions to pending legislation.
