In Our View: GOP Has A Lot To Prove

For her third term in Congress, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler is talking a good game. “More than ever, we need to prove the ideas and principles we stand for are going to work,” the Camas Republican said Tuesday as the 114th Congress convened. “We shouldn’t let egos, attitudes and personalities get in the way.”

Of course, rhetoric and a can-do attitude are hallmarks of every new Congress. Like the opening day of baseball season, everybody is undefeated and hope springs eternal. Actually governing in an effective manner, however, can be a different ballgame. In the end, productive and responsible governance is all the American public desires and deserves. Notions of bipartisanship make for good sound bites, but they often are unrealistic; philosophical differences exist between the parties and between individual members within each party, and those differences require compromise rather than ideological intransigence. You win some, you lose some, after all.

Now, as Republicans take control of both chambers of Congress for the first time in eight years, they can expect political battles with Democrats in Congress, with a Democratic president and, most important, with themselves. Conflicts between mainstream Republicans and the more-conservative Tea Party faction within the GOP could prove to be the defining factor in how the country is governed — or not governed — over the next two years.

For the start of the action, Republicans have expressed two early goals: approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and repeal of the Affordable Care Act. President Obama, despite his frequent exhortations about working with Congress, on Tuesday said that he will veto any Keystone proposal, even though the project appears to have broad support in both parties. Rather than seize the opportunity to demonstrate that a new era has dawned in Washington, D.C., Obama has constructed a fortress that hints at continued gridlock. That led new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to say: “The president threatening to veto the first bipartisan infrastructure bill of the new Congress must come as a shock to the American people who spoke loudly in November in favor of bipartisan accomplishments.”

Republicans, meanwhile, are similarly remiss in continuing to pursue a repeal of Obamacare. Instead of pandering to a certain constituency by pretending they can accomplish the impossible while offering no alternative, lawmakers would better serve the public by working to improve the system. One example of such an approach could be found in a 412-0 vote Tuesday in the House of Representatives, approving a measure that would allow companies to hire veterans without triggering a requirement to provide health coverage for all their employees.

Not that all ideas are going to be universally approved. But while mainstream Republicans attempt to find middle ground within their own party, they also would be wise to embrace some Tea Party philosophies. With the national debt at more than $18 trillion, a balanced budget should be a priority. With federal spending projected to be more than double what it was in 2001, fiscal sanity should be a goal.

The problems facing the nation are vast but not insurmountable. In addition to budget issues, the new Congress must find some middle ground on immigration reform, the threat of worldwide terrorism, changing energy markets, and fostering further economic recovery. With Republicans now in control of Congress, it is, indeed, time to show that the ideas and principles they stand for are going to work.