It's official: Republicans rule the House

MSNBC Chyron Falsely States That House Republicans Will Require All Bills Be Paid For
MSNBC Chyron Falsely States That House Republicans Will Require ‘All Bills Be Paid For’ As one of its first acts, the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives decided to do away with the “pay-go” rule instituted by House Democrats, in favor of something called “cut-go.” Under pay-go, Legislation that added to the Deficit needed to be offset with either Spending Cuts or revenue increases elsewhere. Under cut-go, however, new spending can only ...

Harry Reid and Democrats seek to use backdoor methods to change filibuster rules
Senate Democrats are floating the idea of making major changes to Senate rules applying to the use of the Filibuster.  An important check against the majority, the filibuster exists in part to distinguish the Senate from the whims of the “majority-rule” House.  Structured as a more deliberative body, the filibuster is designed to allow the minority an opportunity to oppose or defeat bills or nominees in certain circumstances.  Democrat Senator Tom Udall is working to a...

Rep. Paul Ryan Suggests Repeal Bill Is All About 'Framing' For 2012
Even though Senate Democrats have unequivocally promised that they "will block" the Repeal of Health Care reform, House Republicans are moving forward with the "Repealing The Job-Killing Health Care Law Act," straining to justify what amounts to a partisan stunt. Today, for example, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) insisted that "it's not symbolic," while Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) speculated that Repeal "may very well pass the Senate." But during a discussion with Wall Street Journal editor Paul Gigo...

Boehner defends GOP against charges it's backtracking on promises
Washington (CNN) - Under fire for already backtracking on promises for more openness, House Speaker John Boehner admitted Thursday there are limits. "I promised a more open process. I didn't promise that every single bill was going to be an open bill," said Boehner during his first news conference as the new House Speaker. "There will be many open rules in this Congress, just watch," he said. Boehner was responding to a question from CNN about the fact that House Republicans plan to bring a hea...

Tea Party Betrayed On Spending Cuts
The Tea Party membership is being set up for yet another huge betrayal by the DC Republican establishment. The members had very clear expectations that specific Spending Cuts would fix the government's Budget problems. The Republican leadership is betraying them by cutting things Tea Party members do not want cut, and are not cutting the things they were led to believe would fix the Budget problems. Tea Party members expected the new Congress to fix the Budget by cutting "government waste," st...

Heller committee assignments include GOP hotspots, but not Ways and Means
Washington — It looks like Dean Heller won’t be getting a subcommittee chair in Ways and Means, but he will have a foothold in both of the subcommittees that are expected to be prime bill drafting ground for two big GOP agenda items: extending Tax Cuts, and repealing Health Care. Heller was named to the Ways and Means subcommittee on Health today -- a position he picks up in addition to his place on the Select Revenue Measures subcommittee, which is where tax laws get written. While he’...

Promises, Shomises
The paint is still drying in new-members’ offices, but Republicans have already broken promises they made on the Campaign Trail, getting themselves in hot water with the American People and their own supporters. Here’s a look at what the media is saying about the Republicans’ not-so-promising first 24 hours in office: AP “PROMISES, PROMISES: GOP drops some out of the gate”: Republicans have already violated some of the vows they made in taking stewardship of the Hou...

Reid: Dems will push ahead with filibuster reform
The Senate's top Democrat vowed to push ahead with Filibuster reform with or without Republican support. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said it's "very clear" that members of his party want to change Senate rules to weaken the filibuster. "They believe, as I believe, that the rules have been abused," Reid said at the Capitol after a Caucus meeting with Senate Democrats. "We hope that Republicans see the light of day and would work with us," Reid added. "If not, we'll do it on our...

CBS: House Republicans 'Begin Their Assault On Health Care Reform'
On Thursday's CBS Early Show, congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes derided Republican efforts to Repeal ObamaCare: "On Friday, they begin their assault on Health Care reform, with a vote to Repeal the law scheduled for next week." Cordes noted how Repeal "will hit a wall in the Senate," observing: "That legislative reality will force both sides to work together on some issues, something Speaker Boehner promised to Democrats." However, moments later she tout...

Obsession with Senate Holds Is Misguided
With the start of the 112th Congress, Senate Democrats have offered a set of rule changes, most of which are geared toward the Filibuster.  Some of these changes, such as guaranteeing the minority at least three amendments, make a great deal of sense.  I’ve long thought that the practice of the Majority Leader (of any party) “filling the amendment tree” did not make for good legislating.  And I say that, recalling as a former Senate Staffer, the practice made my ...

Constitution reading provokes political tussling
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers took turns reading the Constitution on the House floor Thursday, a nod to tea partiers who put Republicans in power. Even the nation's founding text got caught in political tussling: Democrats questioned omitting amended sections that reflect how the document has changed over time, such as one that classified slaves as three-fifths of a person. Republicans, celebrating their second day as the majority power, saw the event as an affirmation of their campaign promise...

GOGI Budgeting
During my college days as a computer-science major, a popular term was “GIGO” — which stood for “Garbage In, Garbage Out” — which warned you that even if you had the slickest program this side of COBOL (remember, I’m old), it would not matter if the data were nonsense. The Congressional Budget Office is the slickest budget shop Congress could wish for. So it came as a shock to some Conservatives today that the CBO examined H.R. 2 (The Repealing the Job-K...

Will health-care reform really save the government money?
Bill Daley: Is it about competence or ideology? I'm a big critic of the new House Budget rules, which have the perverse effect of making it easier to increase the Budget Deficit. And I think repealing the health-care law would be a mistake. But it's unfair to accuse House Republicans of being willing to blow a huge hole in the deficit by repealing Health Care and of being hypocrites on Fiscal Responsibility by exempting the effects of health-care Repeal from their Budget rules. The Congressiona...

Holtz-Eakin sets the record straight on the debt ceiling
The Obama Administration and Democrats are presenting Republicans with their first challenge on reducing the size and scope of government with a vote expected to occur in the first half of the year to raise the Debt ceiling to almost $14.3 Trillion. Democrats and some Republicans are warning of dire economic consequences if the increase isn’t passed. Over at the Daily Caller, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former head of the Congressional Budget Office, takes issue with the view presented by the O...

Video: Boehner says GOP will keep its $100 billion pledge
The Right Scoop captures what is likely to be the biggest takeaway from Speaker John Boehner’s first press grilling in his new position.  Over the last 24 hours, the media has jumped onto some walkback language on earlier GOP pledges to reduce spending by $100 billion in the first year.  That pledge came when Republicans assumed that Democrats would finish their FY 2011 Budget, if not on time, then certainly before losing control of the House.  Instead, they handed the mess to Boehner

Bachmann intel post about politics?
The country has a new guardian for its National Security secrets: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). The outspoken Minnesota congresswoman, and Tea Party favorite, has been tapped by House Speaker John Boehner for a coveted slot on the House Intelligence Committee, giving Bachmann a new role as overseer of the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community, her office confirmed today. The move comes at a time when Bachmann is seeking to burnish her national securit...

Anti-Pelosi Revolt
In spite of presiding over a smashing defeat for her Caucus in Midterm Elections, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to step aside as leader, laying claim to the Minority Leader position for the 112th Congress.  But in the process, a record number of Democratic defectors expressed dissatisfaction with Pelosi by voting for Democratic moderate Heath Shuler instead. The number of defectors was small, but significant.  What it shows is that Pelosi has work to do in unifying her own caucus....

No decision yet
* 1:20 pm - From the Senate Democrats… Leaders’ Meetings: We continue to see progress in meetings with the Governor and the Speaker but discussions are ongoing. Therefore we do not intend to release details [about] revenue options. The Senate President will be avaliable for availabilities and interviews once a clear and viable proposal emerges. Today’s leaders’ meeting has ended. We haven’t scheduled a follow-up meeting at this time. Schedule: Tomorrow is not a ...

Budget Office: Health Care Repeal Would Add $230 Billion to Deficit
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released numbers that should make any Deficit-fearing Republican stop dead on his or her way to vote to Repeal Health Care reform. If the Affordable Care Act is repealed, says the CBO, it would increase the federal budget deficit by $230 billion over the next decade and by $1.2 Trillion in the following 10 years. Contrary to their much ballyhooed new House rules that require any Legislation that increases federal spending or the deficit t...

Boehner: CBO "Entitled to their Opinion"
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, right, accompanied by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va., speaks to the media on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011. (Credit: AP) House Majority Leader John Boehner said today that the Congressional Budget Office is "entitled to their own opinion" - a striking statement in light of the deference usually shown information from the nonpartisan CBO from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Boehner was objecting to a preliminary CBO fin...

VIDEOS: The House GOPs Evolving Promise To Cut $100 Billion From The Budget
House Republicans yesterday found themselves in a bit of trouble when they tried to explain that the $100 billion in Spending Cuts that they have been promising was only “hypothetical,” and they intend to actually cut about half of that from the Budget. But for weeks, the GOP has been repeating over and over that it intended to lop $100 billion from the budget once it came into power, in line with the plan laid out in the much-hyped “Pledge to America.” Watch a compilatio...

Speaker Boehner Dismisses CBOs Report Health Care Repeal Increases Deficit
ABC News’ John R. Parkinson reports:  Speaker of the House John Boehner dismissed a report by the Congressional Budget Office that found that repealing the Health Care law would increase the federal Deficit and warned that the “best Health Care system in the world is going to go down the drain” if Congress fails to Repeal the law. Earlier Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office released a preliminary analysis that the Repeal of the Health Care Reform law, including reduced spend

Conservative leader urges House to follow through on spending
Armey, a Republican and Veteran Washington insider who was the House Majority Leader in the late 1990's, has emerged as a force within the Tea Party movement. His FreedomWorks political action group has given direction, know-how, and financial support to many within Congress' recent wave of rookie conservative members. "Reduce the size of the government," he urged the new Congress. "It's big. It's obnoxious. It's counterproductive. Being in control of this monster that has been out of control, ...

Conservative leader urges House to follow through on spending
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Influential conservative Dick Armey on Thursday urged the new House to take leadership in reducing the size of government and reining in spending by cutting "obnoxious programs" out of the Budget. Armey, a Republican and Veteran Washington insider who was the House Majority Leader in the late 1990's, has emerged as a force within the Tea Party movement. His FreedomWorks political action group has given direction, know-how, and financial support to many within Congress' rec...

Republicans take control of the House
The results of the mid-term election became a reality for Democrats yesterday as Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, and more than 90 new members were seated. John Boehner (R-OH) defeated Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in the election for Speaker. In fact, 19 members of her own Caucus voted for someone else (11 voted for Heath Shuler), voted present or did not vote at all; the most members of a Caucus to vote against their party’s nominee since 1923. The power exchange wasn̵...