Yeah, you've really mucked this up.
Thursday's
Confederate flag debacle in the Republican House is just the latest indication of a House Republican conference spinning out of control. This one piece of spending legislation, the Interior appropriations bill, had been moving along apace, but has now been pulled. It's
an awful bill that deserves to be derailed, but that it derailed over a Confederate flag amendment that House Speaker John Boehner apparently allowed to be slipped into the bill overnight demonstrates just how little control Boehner has and what a mess he's created. But it's just a hint of the
depth of Boehner's problems.
House Republicans have entered a new season of sniping.
GOP leadership has spent weeks twisting arms to get dozens of lawmakers—even some subcommittee chairs—to pony up to the campaign arm, a basic annual obligation of party loyalty.
The party is warring over funding for disease research, bickering over an education bill and deeply divided on the possible renewal of the Export-Import Bank, an object of scorn among the far right. On Wednesday evening, House Republican leaders had to work the floor feverishly to pass the education measure, clearing it with no margin for error.
The bipartisan Kumbaya that swept Washington after Congress cleared a trade package last month has completely dissipated. And Republicans are clashing in private—and, at times, openly—over their entire agenda.
The broad disagreement on so many fronts lately is striking.
And it's not just within the House Republican conference, spilling over to a
fight with Senate leadership over Obamacare repeal. In the immediate term, they're trying to pass a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill—which would privatize air traffic control—with opposition that has caused it to be postponed. The highway trust fund runs out at the end of July, and thanks to maneuvering by Boehner, has been attached to the extremely controversial renewal of the Export Import Bank, the subject of conservative loathing. There's an ongoing skirmish between House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), who wants to kill the Ex-Im Bank, and Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-TN) who wants to save it. The fight is potentially bogging down that highway money (which is
just as fucked up in the Republican Senate).
Has anybody else noticed that Republicans are spectacularly failing at proving they can govern?