THE NEW Republican majority in the House of Representatives will make cutting the size of the US government its central task, alongside plans to return control of it “to the people”, John Boehner declared as he was sworn in as speaker yesterday.
Mr Boehner’s acceptance of the speaker’s gavel as the new Congress began work coincided with another changing of the guard as Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary and a close presidential adviser, announced he was stepping down to work on Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.
The shifting landscape on Capitol Hill and at the White House comes as Republicans and Democrats gear up for major political fights on the budget and on the future of Mr Obama’s health reform law.
Mr Boehner used his inaugural speech as speaker to paint a bleak picture of American life after the downturn, and promised that Republicans were willing to make “tough decisions” to “give the government back to the people”.
“Nearly one in 10 of our neighbours are looking for work,” he said, according to a draft of his speech.
“Our spending has caught up with us and our debt will soon eclipse the size of our entire economy. No longer can we fall short. No longer can we kick the can down the road.”
But translating the Republicans’ campaign ambitions to cut $100 billion from government into a budgetary reality will be a difficult task. Aides for top Republican lawmakers were already backtracking on that promise yesterday, saying they would probably only push through less than half of the promised cuts.
It will be a difficult reality to accept for the thousands of grassroots Tea Party activists who fuelled Republicans’ overwhelming congressional victory in November.
Although Mr Boehner has set his sights on making deep cuts in the budget and repeal of the healthcare law, his most difficult task may lie in keeping his Republican caucus unified.
The new speaker will have to juggle the expectations of conservative activists dead set against political compromise with the demands of many in the business community, a crucial constituent that is at odds with the populist Tea Party movement on issues such as trade and immigration.
He also faces the reality that the Senate and White House are controlled by Democrats. Unlike Newt Gingrich, the former congressman who became speaker of the House after the Republican congressional victory in 1994 and used his power to try to set the Washington agenda, Mr Boehner has stressed that Democrats are still fundamentally in charge.
That might not sit well with Tea Party activists such as Erick Erickson, a conservative blogger who warned the Republican leadership yesterday not to believe in the “chattering classes” who say that the 1995 shutdown of the government following a political standoff between Mr Gingrich and Bill Clinton, then president, backfired on Republicans.– (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011)