Early and Often

As the investigative phase of the Obama presidency commences in earnest, Republicans are promising that their overriding goal is to proceed cautiously and let the facts speak for themselves. “We have stuff here that’s real, so you don’t need the distraction of politics to give people an excuse to say we’re being silly,” a House Republican leadership aide involved in the investigations tells Politico. “Everyone is keenly aware of the overreach risk.” Likewise, Charles Boustany Jr., who is helping lead the IRS investigation on the House Ways and Means Committee, tells the New York Times, “I’m being very cautious not to overplay my hand.”

House Republicans have been meeting to figure out their next strategy on the debt ceiling. The last time, if you recall, President Obama insisted he would not pay a ransom in order to get the House Republicans to do something they agreed had to be done to avert financial catastrophe. They managed to save face by lifting the debt ceiling and attaching a requirement that the Senate pass a formal budget rather than just continue previous budgets. At the time, Republicans hailed this as a great victory, which would force Senate Democrats to negotiate a budget on favorable terms for the GOP.

But Republicans have since figured out that regular order is actually really bad for them, forcing them to openly advocate unpopular policy priorities on taxes and spending, and have been trying desperately to stall to prevent the very thing they once demanded. Now as they contemplate the next debt-ceiling hike, nobody in the party is even pretending that they won anything by making Senate Democrats draw up a formal budget. (“They say they will not simply roll over again, as they did in January,” reports the Washington Post.)