Desperate to get back to the majority in Congress in 2010, Republicans issued a bold “Pledge to America” promising a laundry list of policies and changes to Capitol Hill they said they’d make if voters gave them the reins.
Voters delivered first the House in the tea party-fueled 2010 wave, then the Senate in 2014, and the White House last year, putting the GOP finally in control of all of the political levers of Washington.
While some of the promises from the 2010 pledge have finally been checked off, including steps to lower taxes, curb Obamacare and rein in discretionary spending, a bunch of others have remained undone, including fixing a porous U.S.-Mexico border, a full repeal of Obamacare and maintaining tougher nuclear sanctions against Iran.
The struggles were even bigger when it came to internal changes to Capitol Hill. Avoiding massive “omnibus” spending bills, fostering robust debates on the Constitution, holding weekly votes on spending cuts and reforming the budget process are all still works in progress.
“Look, you have to understand you have a set of goals that represent your platform, but you can’t impose them on people,” said Rep. Tom Cole, Oklahoma Republican and vice chairman of the House Rules Committee.
“We don’t get everything we want, but the real question is: ’Are you working toward the goals you laid out?’ And I think, broadly, we have,” Mr. Cole said.
Looking back at seven years of partial or full governorship, Republicans said there are plenty of promises kept.
The GOP had long looked to lower the corporate income tax rate, even pondering a deal with then-President Barack Obama. This month they delivered a tax overhaul that went well beyond the corporate rates to include lower individual rates and expanded breaks such as the child tax credit.
“We said in 2016 that it would take real tax reform for families and businesses to get the American economy growing, and we were serious,” said House Speaker Paul D. Ryan after the vote. “And the American people placed their trust in us to do this work for them, and today we’re making good on that promise. We’re fulfilling that promise.”
And though Republicans failed in spectacular fashion this year to fully repeal Obamacare — another one of their 2010 pledges — the tax bill repeals the law’s individual mandate, which many in the GOP described as the most egregious part of the Affordable Care Act.
Spending is another area where Republicans posted a mixed record. In 2010 they vowed strict spending caps, and quickly made good on those with the 2011 Budget Control Act, which imposed those caps and the spending “sequesters.”
The caps were so effective that the government actually posted two consecutive years of total spending cuts, for the first time since the 1950s. But the discipline faded and Congress has since busted the caps repeatedly.
“Spending is up — goes up just about every year pretty significantly — this year even more than other years,” said Rep. Justin Amash, Michigan Republican, who was elected as part of the 2010 wave.
Republicans also promised in their 2010 pledge to hold weekly votes on the chamber floor on cutting spending — a vow that has not come to pass.
It’s one of a number of areas of congressional process where the GOP promised big changes, and has struggled to meet many of those goals.
Mr. Amash said leaders have taken shortcuts on pledges for a more open process. Some of those items included a mandatory three-day reading period for bills before holding votes, and the ability for members to freely offer amendments to cut spending.
“I think when people get in that position, they feel a desire to control the system from the top down to avoid uncertainty for lobbyists and interest groups and others,” he said. “But that’s not the way this body is supposed to work — it’s a deliberative body, it’s a legislative body, so we should be allowed to legislate.”
Democrats say that recently, the House has considered more closed-rule bills, where floor amendments are not accepted, than ever — despite pledges to do the exact opposite.
“They lied,” said Rep. James McGovern, Massachusetts Democrat and a member of the Rules Committee that controls floor debate. “I mean, they promised a more open process, they promised a process where all different points of view would be heard, that they would follow regular order, and they’ve done the opposite.”
The 2010 agenda also said lawmakers would consider major bills one at a time, and wouldn’t try to roll multiple issues into one big package. That practice has now become almost commonplace as lawmakers routinely pass omnibus spending bills and use must-pass bills to get a panoply of things done at the same time.
Republicans’ mixed record on their promises stands in contrast to the 1994 Contract with America, a 10-point plan that helped the GOP end a decades-long drought to take control of the House and regain the Senate on a vow to pass specific bills.
Former Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, who was elected in that 1994 wave, said Republicans were able to deliver on those promises because they were hungrier for the majority.
“We were determined to show that we were going to do things differently,” he said. “We had a great leader in [Newt] Gingrich, but we’d been out of power and we were focused on proving ourselves different.”
Now, there’s more an “every man for himself” attitude in some quarters with members more willing to challenge leadership, and a more segmented media market that provides everyone with their own set of facts, he said.
“Both parties, when they’re the out party, claim to be doing this and they come into office and they just find out you’re incapable of [one] moving an agenda through,” he said.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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