WASHINGTON ― House Republicans are on a two-week recess, and while the GOP-controlled Congress hasn’t been able to push through any significant part of President Donald Trump’s agenda, the party has some talking points for its members as they travel their districts.
In a document sent to all House Republicans and obtained by The Huffington Post, the House GOP conference offers some tips on how to frame the past few less-than-spectacular months.
“Republicans promised the American people we’d have an aggressive agenda, and we do,” the document begins, in an over-promise/under-deliver tone that Republicans are probably familiar with at this point. “Using the Congressional Review Act (CRA), we’re working every day with President Trump to roll back harmful Obama-era regulations ― more than any other time in history ― so we can grow our economy and create jobs.”
If you begin your talking points by touting your aggressive agenda, and then bring up all the stuff you plan to get done with the Congressional Review Act ― which allows Congress to block regulations from government agencies with just a simple majority in the House and Senate ― perhaps it is time to rethink how you begin your talking points.
But no matter. Republicans have many achievements... that they will achieve any day now. First up? Health care.
On the failed efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, the talking points explain that Republicans still have every intention to get a bill through both chambers and across Trump’s desk.
“This is the legislative process at work,” the talking points explain, going on to mention the “bottom-up approach” to the health care bill that Republicans embraced ― the one where Republicans didn’t hold a hearing with a single witness, had leaders write a bill in secret, and then literally hid the legislation from members so they couldn’t read it.
The talking points on health care also offer some resources that Republicans can use to arm themselves for town halls, should any of them be bold enough to hold a town hall.
One of those resources is a cherry-picked paragraph from an April 6 Vox article on two insurers pulling out of the Obamacare exchanges in Iowa:
How much does this [the drop of insurers] have to do with current repeal push? Participation in the Obamacare marketplaces was going down before the election. You probably remember the headlines from last summer when insurance giants like United and Aetna pulled out of a lot of markets. That left lots of places with just one insurer selling coverage.
What the talking points don’t mention is this other paragraph from the Vox article (emphasis added):
Health insurers across the country are making decisions right now about whether they want to participate in Obamacare’s marketplace next year. These Iowa insurers are among the first to make up their minds — and have decided that the Obamacare marketplaces are just too risky of an investment in an era of repeal and replace.
Republicans are glossing over their own record of creating uncertainty in the Obamacare exchanges market, instead simply pointing out that there is uncertainty. They’re right that even without their ill-fated, ongoing attempts to kill the 2010 health care law, there’d be some trouble in the insurance market. But it’s mighty disingenuous to ignore your own role in the instability.
On another topic of future achievements, the talking points offer some thoughts on infrastructure. But this is not your president’s idea of an infrastructure bill. Instead of a $1 trillion overhaul, members are instructed to talk about a complicated federal permitting process that Republicans will supposedly have a “plan” to address by summer.
As Republicans note, many of those permits have to do with assessing the environmental impact of various projects.
“While we are strong proponents of the environment,” the talking points claim, “spending tens of millions of dollars on documents that provide no tangible environmental benefit is extraordinarily inefficient.”
Environmental benefits are imagined. Economic benefits are real. Science.
One area of accomplishment that House Republicans are supposed to take pride in is an issue they had nothing to do with: the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.
“President Trump promised a ‘truly great’ choice for the Supreme Court, and with Justice Neil Gorsuch, he followed through,” the talking points say. Again, Gorsuch’s confirmation was carried out in the Senate, not the House.
The talking points also touch on Syria. Rather than going into any sort of detail about a military campaign, the GOP conference supplies a few quotes from prominent House Republicans on Trump’s recent missile strike. And while leadership helpfully bolds some sentences ― they liked it when Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) called the strike “appropriate and just” ― there’s no section explaining what legal justification Trump used for that attack, or whether Congress will vote on a formal authorization for use of military force. Probably better to just assume we won and that’s that.
Elsewhere, the talking points suggest that Republicans tout a decline in border apprehensions. “Today’s announcement of the dramatic drop in illegal southern border apprehensions demonstrates that the President’s commitment to securing our border and supporting law enforcement is already showing results,” the document says.
Mind you, nothing has actually changed. Not a single new foot of border wall has been constructed. Border agencies aren’t doing anything differently. But that shouldn’t stop Republicans from taking credit.
Republicans might also want to claim some credit for their important role in stoking investor expectations, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average going up 12 percent since Election Day. Of course, much of that rise may be based on dubious beliefs that Republicans can achieve a tax reform that isn’t mentioned in the talking points, or pass a massive infrastructure bill that will spur economic growth. But why ruin a good thing?
Here are the full talking points: