House GOP to return on Sunday ... but without plans to actually do anything

by Jed Lewison for Daily Kos

Community

Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012 Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012 at 12:30:05pm PST

Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hands the speaker's gavel to incoming House Speaker John Boehner after Boehner was elected Speaker on the opening day of the 112th United States Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 5, 2011. Republicans are t

After a day of getting hammered for skipping town in the face of looming tax hikes, House Republicans are coming back to town Sunday at 6:30 PM. But:

Speaker John Boehner’s message to House Republicans is no different privately, than what he’s saying publicly.
“We are waiting on the Senate,” the Ohio Republicans told lawmakers on a call restricted to the 241 lawmakers in the House Republican Conference.

The Senate's already passed an extension of tax cuts, so if that's all that John Boehner is waiting for, his wait is over. And if he would rather see legislation that also extends unemployment benefits, includes a "doc fix" for Medicare, and raises the debt limit, he should say so, because that's something that could get done. But if he's only bringing his gang back in town to win a spin war, the sight of them sitting on their hands when they could act on the Senate's legislation won't do them any favors.