Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is not happy.
Having already been a spectacular failure at getting anything done on health care after eight months of the Republicans being in charge of, well, everything, McConnell seems to be very upset that the public is noticing.
Speaking at a Rotary Club gathering in Kentucky on Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vented about how President Donald Trump‘s lack of political experience has led to him setting “excessive expectations” for legislative priorities.
McConnell, R-Ky., told the group in Florence that he found it “extremely irritating” that Congress has earned the reputation of not accomplishing anything.
The thing is, they have actually earned the reputation.
After the Republicans won back the Senate in 2014, McConnell was fond of saying that the GOP just needed to win the White House to get anything done. It was weak-the party should have been able to accomplish something with both chambers of Congress in hand-but not ridiculous. If the Republicans had passed anything significant President Obama certainly would have vetoed and they didn’t have a veto-proof majority.
Now it seems that was all just so much convenient cover for dysfunction and a lack of will.
To be sure, McConnell has an occasional moment. Making sure Merrick Garland’s confirmation never came up for a vote being the most recent.
That was last year.
We are now firmly in “What have you done for me lately?” territory now and there really isn’t much to show for it.
Having gotten everything he said he needed and still unable to get things done, McConnell-like any good politician-is casting about for a scapegoat. This time, the bogeyman is “timelines”.
Speaking at a Rotary Club gathering in Kentucky on Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vented about how President Donald Trump‘s lack of political experience has led to him setting “excessive expectations” for legislative priorities.
McConnell, R-Ky., told the group in Florence that he found it “extremely irritating” that Congress has earned the reputation of not accomplishing anything.
Those of us not suffering from amnesia remember what Republicans in Congress promised in the years before Donald Trump became president. The were going to repeal Obamacare and, during his most recent campaign, McConnell himself expressed a desire to work on tax reform.
Obviously, things change from one congressional session to the next. However, these were supposed to have been priorities for the GOP and they had more than ample time to think about them. Also, most of the major players in the House and Senate are still there. It isn’t as if all new people showed up and had to get up to speed.
McConnell continues to babble about Trump’s lack of political experience, which is true but does not excuse the fact that he and his colleagues have been caught unaware by their own promises.
What’s most disturbing here is the thought that McConnell may not so much be making excuses for recent failures but pre-gaming the excuses for what is to come.
Even among many Republicans, there has long been a theory that they only function well as an opposition party and aren’t much interested in leading. One would hope that weren’t true. However, when you look at things like the debt ceiling “negotiations” in recent years and the health care debacle this year, the Republicans’ biggest obstacle has generally been the Republicans.
McConnell may very well be planning on failure here. The “timetables” for all of this were set when the voters kept electing Republicans to offices all over the country.
If they can’t muster the political capital to be expeditious while holding the White House, the Senate, the House and most state houses and legislatures, they’ll never be able to.
