Texas Insider Report: Washington D.C. Republicans are sharpening their budget knives ready to take over the House when Congress convenes at noon Wednesday. At his first news conference with reporters on Tuesday the incoming House majority leader Eric Cantor R-Va. previewed the coming year with a promise to make a cut a week to the budget to pare the $1.3 trillion deficit.
Cantor described Republicans as a cut-and-grow majority that will trim spending and bolster the economy. The GOP on Thursday will vote on a measure to trim all House operational costs by 5 percent to save $35 million.
Members of the House and Senate lawmakers will be sworn in at noon and address the first order of business in the turnover of power: electing a new speaker. Democrats will nominate outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi D-Calif. who presided over a Democratically controlled chamber since 2006 but whose party is now vastly outnumbered by Republicans 242-193.
The GOP plans to nominate and elect Rep. John Boehner of Ohio who has headed the Republican conference for the past four years. Boehner is making big promises -- cuts in spending to reduce the deficit a more open legislative process and policies he said will boost the economy and increase jobs.
Boehner also is calling for changes in the House rules which will be instituted in a vote following his election to speaker. The new rules would impose a six-year term limit on committee chairmen who can now serve indefinitely and would require bills to be posted online in advance of any action taken on them. Among other changes lawmaker attendance records at hearings would be made public for the first time.
The new rules also aim to help the GOP achieve its goal of curbing spending by requiring the budget to be cut in an equal amount to any mandatory spending increase and prohibiting tax increases from being used to pay for new spending.
Next week Republicans will call for a vote to repeal President Obamas health care law. The bill will pass easily perhaps with a smattering of support from Democrats who opposed it when it passed a year ago. But the bill stands no chance of passage in the Senate where Democrats hold the majority by a margin of 53-47.
House Democrats meanwhile are trying to stay relevant. They held a news conference Tuesday promising to work with Republicans while pledging to vote against the new rules package and the repeal of health reforms which they said would increase the deficit.
They told the American people that theyd listened and learned but in the rules package were going to see tomorrow its going to be very clear that its back to the same old games said Rep. Chris Van Hollen D-Md.
Pelosi who will serve as minority leader in the new Republican Congress pledged to block efforts to repeal the health care bill including the requirement that most Americans buy health insurance that public opinion polls show is unpopular.
If you dont have comprehensive reform youre just giving license to insurance companies telling them to cover that and having them raise the rates through the roof Pelosi said. So it all goes together.
