Throughout 2009 and much of 2010, Republican strategists were amazed by what they saw on Capitol Hill. Democrats had just won a big election and knew the public was eager for them to work on economic recovery. So what did Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do? They pushed their party's top priority, national health care, instead of the public's top priority.
At the time, Republican insiders said things like, "Any day you're not talking about jobs and the economy is a day you're on the wrong topic." Throughout 2010, Republicans campaigned on the platform of creating jobs and economic growth, along with the repeal of Obamacare, which they characterized as a job-killer. The message was clear: Jobs, jobs, jobs.
It worked, and in January House Republicans got a chance to translate their job-creating promises into action. But now, five months after taking power, Speaker John Boehner and his fellow GOP lawmakers find themselves mired in an ongoing fight about House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's proposal to transform Medicare. It's a long way from those campaign promises about jobs. What happened?
The problems started at the very beginning. Instead of getting to work on their agenda, House Republicans were forced to craft a continuing resolution, or CR, to keep the government running. It was the Democrats' fault -- Pelosi and Reid had simply refused to produce a budget in 2010 -- but it had to be done by the party in power.
"The CR was very frustrating," says a well-connected Republican. "It was huge and took up tons of time."
Then there was the pressure to produce a budget. Republicans chose to support the Ryan plan, which outlines a path of cutting taxes and other growth-promotion strategies alongside restructuring Medicare and Medicaid to ease future deficits.
But in the public-relations war that followed, the GOP's zeal for deficit cutting occasionally overtook the party's recognition of the need for jobs and growth. "For some reason everybody decided to lead with their chins," says the well-connected Republican, "instead of saying we need to balance the budget because we're trying to grow the economy and create jobs." Pushing so hard on long-term deficit reduction left Republicans vulnerable to the inevitable Democratic "Mediscare" attacks and the claim that GOP lawmakers are plotting to "end" Medicare. So for weeks now, Republicans have been fighting the Battle of Medicare instead of talking about jobs.
Constrained by the pressures of running the House and by their own miscalculations, Republicans are now trying to force the national conversation back to jobs. In recent days they have been promoting "A Plan for America's Job Creators," which is a new package of tax-cut and deregulation proposals designed to stimulate job growth. It's "the kind of growth that the 'stimulus' promised but failed to deliver," Boehner said in a weekend statement.
The well-connected Republican calls the move a "reset" on the jobs issue, but it might as well be called a "pivot" -- as in President Obama's long-promised but never accomplished pivot to jobs and the economy. Now it is Republicans who need to get back on track.
GOP leaders don't like the comparison, but they do say "A Plan for America's Job Creators" is all about getting back to basics. "It's an effort to go back to the touchstone, to go back to the foundation," says Rep. Peter Roskam, the GOP's chief deputy whip and an architect of the original Pledge to America. Economic growth produces tax revenues, which in turn brings budgets into balance. "It's very important to always go back to this foundation of economic growth," Roskam continues. "That's really where the action is, and I think that's where most Americans want their Congress to spend the majority of their time."
Republicans know they're fighting an uphill battle. Democrats are accomplished "Mediscare" warriors, and the Ryan budget has made it difficult to focus on jobs. But there's still time before the 2012 campaign is in full force, and Republicans can take comfort in the fact that voters don't believe Obama and the Democrats are any better; a Wall Street Journal poll earlier this month found that just 37 percent approve of the job Obama is doing on the economy, while 58 percent disapprove.
But the bottom line is this: Voters want their lawmakers to act on jobs and the economy. Republicans must listen, or they risk suffering the same fate as Democrats last November.
Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.
