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Speaker Ryan?
In the circumstances, Paul Ryan’s conditions for running for Speaker strike me as entirely reasonable. You?
Ryan is apparently not prepared to violate the Hastert rule as readily as Boehner. He has made clear that he does not want the job unless all GOP representatives agree to support his candidacy. So in that sense, he would not be like a liberal GOP speaker who owed his election to Democrats.
Ryan has shown courage in taking on entitlements. He has been more vocal about the need for regular order. Regardless of his personal views on immigration, he has known who brung him to the dance, and has supported the party. He has a reputation as a straight shooter.
I don’t follow the ins and outs of Congressional politics. If, however, Ryan can bring a combination of smarts and courage and loyalty to his caucus, he may unify the party in a way that Boehner hasn’t. His strength in the past has been to put together budgets that his party could get behind (even if the leadership refused to fight on that hill). I think there is a belief that he is singularly able to foster similar unity on other big policy questions.
Whatever it is regarding the motion to vacate, even if only a pledge not to make such a motion.
With Dave’s permission, here is his response:
Ryan said two things concerning this:
…he encourages changes to our rules and procedures, but he also believes that those changes must be made as a team. They affect everyone, so everyone should have the opportunity for input.
And
…he believes there needs to be a change to the process for a motion to vacate the chair. No matter who is speaker, they cannot be successful with this weapon pointed at them all the time.
I don’t have a problem with that.
Eric Hines
It sounds to me like Ryan’s position on the motion to vacate is basically, “Put up or shut up.” I suspect what he has a problem with is precisely what’s going on right now; A critical mass of people saying, “We don’t know who we want, but we don’t want you.”
Either nominate somebody or sit down.
Obviously Ryan meant give him the Senate with a Republican President.
And he has not folded; he is working to put a reconciliation bill repealing Obamacare on the President’s desk. Here’s Ryan talking about it (a couple weeks ago, obviously).
As for the “vacate the chair” thing, as I understand it all he wants is to ensure a splinter group of Republicans can’t vote with Democrats to dump a speaker. He’s not trying to make himself some unaccountable king. He’s proposed requiring a majority of the caucus or a few other ways of limiting it, I believe. It seems entirely reasonable and something conservatives should actually want, Jefferson aside (he could be wrong at times). The Freedom Caucus is the one wielding the tool now, but give us a few years and reshuffle the politics, and there’s nothing stopping a moderate group willing to work with moderate Democrats from running with it.
Ryan’s play was brilliant, especially since he’s also sincere. These aren’t his demands because it’s what he wants (other than the family time). It’s what he genuinely believes needs to happen for the House to work.
And it’s a compromise among the various groups. He’s offering the Freedom Caucus the kind of process change he wants; he only seems to be telling them they have to reach agreement on rules changes in the whole caucus — “as a team.” If they want more openness, they should support that on principle anyway.
Do we ever hold Paul Ryan at his word or do his apologists just put words in his mouth to fit their narrative.
His words had a context. He was the VP nominee at the time, making an argument for his own ticket. He was saying in effect, elect us and give us the Senate — not just give us the Senate and that will be enough. The people who are snipping Ryan’s words out of context are the ones who are engaging in distortion to advance their narrative.
And I’m not an apologist for Ryan — I really don’t know if he’s the right guy or not — but I do bristle at these kinds of distortions.
If this is the case it is even more of an indictment.
If that is his exact quote it matters.
I respect you are not an apologist for him. Unfortunately we keep coming back to his past assertions and finding less to like whether it is quotes like this, context or otherwise, TARP, immigration, etc. I’ve never liked his positions, but that doesn’t disqualify him from Speaker.
How so? At the time he was saying, with the presidency and Senate we can achieve GOP goals. When the party won the Senate without the presidency, the GOP did not achieve its goals. How are his presidential campaign promises an indictment of the current situation?
Sure it does. But you are interpreting the words (esp. “us”) to mean something different now than they meant at the time they were said.
My question is if he was speaking of having the House, Senate, and President Romney, why is the goal to only repeal 85% of the ACA.
Because reconciliation only allows you to amend provisions of the ACA that have budget impact.
I will trust you are correct, but this is part of the problem. It is always easier to defer to arcane procedures to protect big government than take risks to repeal it entirely.
What risks?
Here’s the irony: What began as a complaint that Ryan overpromised and didn’t deliver has now developed into a complaint that Ryan was unwilling to promise things he couldn’t deliver.
I’m heartened by his use of YouTube to bypass traditional media when making his case for budget reform. Republicans must control the narrative to win voters. And it’s nice having an unfiltered record of policy arguments.
Associated with eliminating the filibuster.
Okay, so let’s play this out as a general strategy, while acknowledging that Ryan is a member of the house, and has no say over Senate rules.
There are good arguments on both sides of the issue of whether to eliminate the filibuster. Let’s say that Sal successfully convinces me (he came close) that we should ultimately do away with it.
There is no question that you should wait to do so until you hold the house, senate, and the presidency. Doing so at any other moment is a waste as the democrats may well hold all three again before you do, and despite heated rhetoric from the right, they have largely obeyed it. We would potentially be untying their hands instead of our own. There is no upside to removing it while a democrat is president.
There is also no upside to talking about doing it. You remove it like a band-aid. All at once, and then let the media cry themselves out after the fact, rather than give them a year or more to demonize ahead of time, creating cold feet in some members.
It would more clearly focus the blame for things at the foot of the President.
Congress could pass separate bills with noncontroversial items (e.g., funding critical services). If the President vetoes, he gets the blame.
Right now, it’s easy for the Senate Democrats to block something noncontroversial (because they want to use it as leverage to get something controversial) and then have President blame the blockage on Republicans.
I’m interested in a different aspect regarding the filibuster than Mr Soto’s. Assuming it’s a good idea to get rid of the filibuster, what’s your plan, Brent, for the Senate eliminating it? What’s your path for achieving that?
Eric Hines
This doesn’t wash. The Democrats had no problem figuring out how to beat up the obstructionist Republicans for filibustering. And they didn’t have to go crying to Daddy President to start the blame game; they did it from the Senate. Nor is the degree of controversy or “cleanliness” of the bill a factor.
The Republicans could just as easily more clearly focus the blame on obstructionist Democrats. Which is what some of the right-side Republicans are on about now–pass the stuff, force the filibuster/veto, and then focus the blame.
Eric Hines
Currently, the weight of the MSM allows the blame to fall on Republicans whether it is the Republicans or Democrats filibustering. It also allows the concepts of clean and unclean to be inverted. This just makes it more difficult for the MSM to blame Republicans
Not through the MSM filter.
Does Sal’s argument appear anywhere on Ricochet? Does he believe it would ultimately make the government somewhat more libertarian or for some other principled reason, or does he think the democrats are going to do it sometime anyway so we might as well do it strategically when it maximizes gains?
The media will simply portray every veto as heroic for stopping the Republicans from doing all manner of evil.
It changes nothing fundamental about the coverage or narratives. It is wishful thinking to believe otherwise.
He explained it to me on an AMU night cap. Not sure if it’s in writing on Ricochet.
He believes that a deadlocked congress leads to a runaway executive, which is ultimately a greater threat to liberty than congress. That doesn’t do the argument justice, but it’s the gist of it.
Have you been on it recently? Maybe we should all jump on it tonight and dominate the conversation.