Republican policies led to fiscal blowup

WASHINGTON — House Republicans seem shocked by their party’s meltdown on the so-called fiscal cliff. They shouldn’t be.

The uncompromising conservatives who blocked Speaker John Boehner’s tax bill were merely sticking to policies that Boehner and nearly all other Republican leaders have pushed, without reservation, for years: It’s always wrong to raise tax rates on anyone, no matter how rich. The nation’s big deficit is entirely “a spending problem, not a revenue problem.” And in any deficit-reduction plan, spending cuts must overwhelm new revenues, by 10-to-1 if not more.

To be surprised by Boehner’s failure is to assume one of two things. Either House conservatives didn’t really believe their party’s bedrock principles; or they would compromise after seeing President Barack Obama win reelection on a deficit-reduction plan that called for higher taxes on the wealthy.

Neither was true. And now the Republican Party is reeling from unbending fealty to its core principles.

Congress’ structure makes compromise essential, and the nation once lionized the 19th century senator and congressman Henry Clay as “the Great Compromiser.” But the modern Republican Party is heavily energized by the anti-tax, small government tea party movement, which sees compromise as a triumph of flabby pragmatism over courageous conviction.

All these threads weaved themselves into a knot late Thursday that strangled Boehner’s bid to position his party behind a tiny concession on tax hikes. Whereas Obama campaigned to raise tax rates on couples making more than $250,000 — a threshold he offered to raise in postelection negotiations — Boehner asked his House Republican colleagues to accept higher rates only on millionaires.

When an undisclosed number refused, Boehner had to abruptly send Congress home for the holidays and face reporters asking if he will lose his speakership.

And with good reason, many would say. The Republican establishment has long embraced conservative activist Grover Norquist’s drive to persuade nearly every Republican lawmaker to pledge never to raise taxes on anyone, no matter how big the gap between federal revenue and spending.

Even though conservative heroes such as President Ronald Reagan raised taxes at times, the anti-tax pledge became the Republican Party’s “brand,” as Norquist often said.

Norquist said Boehner’s proposed tax on millionaires would not technically violate the pledge. But it was too late, or too little, for many House Republicans.

Such intransigence in the face of a narrowly divided U.S. electorate dismays Republicans who say compromise can be vital to a party’s survival.

The collapse of Boehner’s tax effort “weakens the entire Republican Party,” said Republican Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio, who is retiring after 18 years.

Republicans point to their success in maintaining control of the House of Representatives, now assured for 16 of 20 years since 1994.

It’s also true, however, that Democrats this year won more House votes nationwide than Republicans did. Republicans kept their majority because Republican-controlled state legislatures in some key states were able to shape the boundaries of congressional districts in a partisan manner to concentrate Democratic voters in a few districts while maximizing Republican strength in others.

And Republicans have also lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections.

For some time, signs have indicated the Republican Party is shifting away from majority public opinion on key issues. They include taxes and spending.

Obama said this week he realizes that many House Republicans “come from districts that I lost. And so sometimes they may not see an incentive in cooperating with me, in part because they’re more concerned about challenges from a tea party candidate, or challenges from the right.”

Obama has his own problems with unbending liberals who want to protect Social Security retirement benefits, Medicare health care coverage for the elderly, and other social programs from virtually any cuts. Obama’s positions have varied, but he clearly signaled in his 2011 “grand bargain” talks with Boehner that he was willing to slow those programs’ growth as part of a deficit-reduction, tax-increase deal.

It’s still possible that Obama, Boehner and Congress can reach a deal to avert the “fiscal cliff” before the Jan. 1 deadline when tax hikes and across-the-board spending cuts to the military and other federal agencies are triggered.

For now, however, the House Republicans’ internal warfare makes it easier for opponents to paint them as extremists, unworthy of serious negotiations.

It’s doubtful that any congressional Republicans see themselves as radicals. Polls nonetheless show that key Republican policies are drifting from mainstream American sentiment. The Republican establishment has yet to do much about it.