“Majority Leader” on The Daily Caller

The morning after the House failed to extend key provisions of the Patriot Act when more than two dozen Republicans defected, the blame game was in full swing. (more)

1.) We will all die of old age before anyone cuts spending — After a largely symbolic repeal of Obamacare, what will Republicans do next to cut spending? Absolutely nothing, apparently. “Entitlement reform will only be done on a bipartisan basis. So we’re waiting for signals from the president as to whether or not that’s a discussion he’s willing to have,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, in a Thursday press conference. “The president must embrace it.” The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward writes, “House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican, acted on Tuesday as if Obama was the one who was just elected based on promises to cut government spending” and that “House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio Republican, had no answer Thursday for NBC’s Brian Williams when asked to name ‘a program right now that we could do without.’” Head, desk. (more)

1.) Your grandmother drives faster than the new Republican majority — Welcome to the Lowered Expectations dating service, where nobody’s profile picture reflects what he looks like in real life. First up: The House’s Republican majority. Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor promised $100 billion in spending cuts. Late Tuesday, unnamed GOP aides downgraded that amount to roughly $50 billion, reports the New York Times, “because the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, will be nearly half over before spending cuts could become law.” The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward, after attending Cantor’s press availability on Tuesday, reported that Republicans may be relying on Obama to do their cutting for them: “Once we get to the State of the Union I expect this president to put some action behind the words he’s been about,” Cantor said yesterday afternoon. “When pressed numerous times for whether there will be specific spending cuts proposed and regulations put under the axe prior to the State of the Union,” Ward added, “Cantor mentioned only an already announced five percent reduction to congressional office budgets that will save $35 million.” Hear that noise? That is the sound of the Tea Partiers sharpening their knives. (more)

A myriad of liberal organizations has plotted for months behind the scenes to rewrite Senate rules to limit the power of Republicans. As their anti-filibuster campaign reaches a critical moment, they’re pulling out all the stops. In recent days, the New York Times editorialized in support of their effort and the Washington Post carried op-eds from their allies. (more)

House Republicans plan to vote to repeal Obamacare on January 12 as their first order of business in control of the 112th Congress. (more)

After indications over the weekend that Republicans are looking to vote on a repeal of health care legislation, five Democratic senators, including Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), have written a letter warning incoming House Speaker John Boenher (R-OH) of the effects a health care repeal would have on seniors who fall into the so-called Medicare “donut hole,” and vowing to block any Republican-led effort aimed at repealing the legislation. (more)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is considering canceling the results of the November elections by changing the Senate rules when senators conduct their opening day procedures on January 5th. Democrats want to reduce the number of senators needed to invoke cloture (limit debate). (more)

According to a George Washington University study, the Obama administration issued 16,200 regulations in 2009. In comparison, just 28,400 regulations were issued in the period from April 1996 through December 2000. If this doesn’t get your jaw dropping, a 57% increase in the staffing and the federal funds devoted to developing and enforcing federal regulations should have you shaking your head. Also, in order to get an accurate picture of regulators run amok, you need to add to these 16,200 regulations the thousands of regulations included in the financial reform bill, the food safety bill and the health care bill, all passed in 2010. Finally, a full picture of regulators on steroids can be plainly seen if you also add the final weeks in December 2010, when Obama’s regulators continued to issue rules and vote on regulations that had been defeated or vigorously opposed in Congress. (more)

1.) Incoming congress knows that water wears down the rock not by force, but with constant falling — “To prevent deficit reduction from being used as an excuse for tax hikes, Republicans are getting rid of the ‘Pay-As-You-Go’ rule and replacing it with a ‘Cut-As-You-Go’ rule,” reports The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward. “The rule will require that any legislation that seeks to increase mandatory spending (which is spending that once added to the federal budget recurs year after year and is thus permanent) cuts spending by a similar amount.” If successful, this would change the entire economy of the House. “As [Blunt] put it, ‘Let’s turn the activists for big government on each other, instead of letting them gang up on the taxpayer,’” said Majority Leader John Boehner. “Through this public discussion, we might end up finding out that neither program has a whole lot of merit in the first place.” Instead of trading horses, people will start shooting them. This means fewer horses to feed. (more)

1.) Establishment Republicans conflicted over whose back to pat for busted omnibus bill — Majority Leader Harry Reid folded during last night’s high-stakes po(r)ker game. Now Beltway types are racing to cement a narrative for exactly what made the GOP so bold. “The defeat of a pork-laden $1.1 trillion ‘omnibus’ spending bill in the Senate Thursday night was the first serious indication after the Nov. 2 election that the Tea Party movement has staying power and will be a force into 2011,” writes The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward. “Some Republicans on Capitol Hill said Thursday night that GOP leadership played a pivotal role as well. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was said to have pressured key GOP lawmakers to stand firm against the legislation, though some in leadership said the conference was fairly united against it from the beginning.” Less, uh, established folks, like Sen. Tom Coburn’s beard, were more willing to give all credit to the Tea Party: “It was 100 percent grassroots…The American people took it down,” said Coburn spokesman John Hart. Also, bitter Democrats, one of whom dejectedly chalked up the broke-down omnibus to Congressional Republicans being “a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tea Party.” (more)

For Tim Berry, a top Republican lobbyist for Time Warner, the timing couldn’t have been worse. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Slowly, painfully and reluctantly, congressional Democrats are slogging their way toward acceptance of President Barack Obama’s tax cut compromise, which would let rich and poor Americans keep Bush-era tax cuts that were scheduled to expire this month. (more)

It’s not often that you hear any House Democrat holding up Harry Reid, of all people, as a model. (more)

The Senate will debate the Food Safety Modernization Act on this coming Monday, deciding whether to give the Food and Drug Administration the authority to recall food products it suspects are infected. (more)

House Republicans approved a measure to impose a moratorium on earmark spending, following their counterparts in the Senate who voted overwhelmingly on a similar proposal earlier this week. (more)

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday that a weapons treaty with Russia that has been stalled due to Republican objections must pass before the end of the year, and predicted the Senate will indeed ratify it. (more)

Senate Democrats on Tuesday defended the congressional system of earmarking even as their GOP colleagues approved a voluntary, two-year ban on the practice. (more)

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Tuesday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has personally promised him that Senate Democrats would not pursue a cap-and-trade bill during the next Congress. (more)

Trent Lott, the former senate majority leader from Mississippi, made news last summer when he said this of incoming tea party-backed senators: “As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.” Lott’s words have since been held up as evidence that the Republican establishment in Washington is corrupt and out of touch – as case made most recently by Sen. Jim DeMint, in a widely-read op-ed that ran in Wednesday’s Wall St. Journal. (more)

The Democrats are in trouble in the United States Senate come November. (more)