As the 113th U.S. Congress convenes, House Republicans are a bit fractured but are ready to fight hard in vital debates ranging from the debt ceiling to job creation.
Texas Rep. Kevin Brady is the top House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee and is also a member of the House Ways and Means Committee. He says the recent fights over the fiscal cliff legislation splintered the GOP, but no one should anticipate anything shocking in today’s election for Speaker of the House.
“We’re having real, honest differences about what’s the best strategy to maximize our power and influence,” said Brady. Which fights do we focus on and got to the mat for? Which ones are we simply not able to pull across the line as we would like to have? I don’t know if there’ll be other alternatives, but clearly the choice is between Nancy Pelosi and Speaker John Boehner. There’s no question about who I support – John Boehner. Should he decide not to seek the speakership today or sometime in the future, whenever that would be, I’m going to support the most conservative candidate.”
Asked about whether that statement indicated Boehner might not stand for Speaker of the House on Thursday, Brady poured cold water on such speculation. The congressman says he has every expectation that Boehner will run and will win.
Rep. Brady says despite the GOP’s frustration during the fiscal cliff debate, the party is fired up and ready to fight when the debate over whether to raise the debt ceiling arrives in a few weeks. Brady says House Republicans succeeded in denying President Obama unlimited power to raise the debt ceiling in this week’s vote and they’re ready to fight for fiscal sanity again.
“The debt ceiling vote is our strongest leverage for getting authentic spending cuts, forcing these guys to the table,” said Brady. “This president, in my view, having gone through several rounds of watching him operate. He’s not a serious president on these issues. He’s not someone you can count on to tackle big issues, just like in this case where he was basically ignored and the vice president had to step in eventually to do business. I really don’t expect him to lead on these issues.”
Brady indicated that Republicans are ready to go even further than before in order to demand spending cuts. He says Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey is right that the GOP must be ready to accept a partial temporary government shutdown if that’s what is needed to impose real discipline.
“Senator Toomey is right. If we don’t get this right, I think we’re looking at another downgrade of our credit rating in America,” said Brady. “We may have avoided the so-called fiscal cliff. We’re still in a fiscal ditch in a major way. Nothing changed from that standpoint and it has to change.”
Brady did reluctantly vote for the fiscal cliff bill on Tuesday. He says he was extremely disappointed over the lack of any serious approach to spending or entitlement reform, but he says the need to make permanent as much tax relief as possible and to block President Obama’s goal of unlimited power to raise the debt ceiling.
