2012 GOP House Agenda?

Nice blog post by Steve Benen on the obstructionist GOP House majority in The Washington Monthly, you should give it a read.  Some highlights:

"House Republicans, both the leadership and rank-and-file members, are not unaware of their circumstances. After massive wins in the 2010 midterms, GOP officials started 2011 with high hopes. . . . . . . . . .  Things haven’t exactly gone according to plan. Republicans have seen their popularity deteriorate; they’ve failed to persuade much of anyone as to the value of their policy agenda; and most independent projections suggest the GOP will lose quite a few seats, if not their majority, in November . . . . . . . . . . With this in mind, Republican leaders realize 2011 was a horrid year, and have sketched out a game plan for 2012, sharing a legislative agenda with its caucus. Jake Sherman reports today that rank-and-file GOP members have seen the plans and think it’s “lame" . . . . . . . . . . "Staring nervously at a high unemployment rate, with the November elections around the corner, GOP lawmakers are concerned that what their leadership is revealing for this year’s work is simply not enough. . . . . . . . . .  “We need to get more done”. . . . . . . . . .  And with Congress’s approval ratings in the gutter, Republicans are sick of blaming the Senate for their inaction. They want real legislative victories, not just GOP bills that pass out of the House and go nowhere on the other side of the dome. . . . . . . . . .  Granted, Republicans won’t be eager to hand the White House any election-year victories, but at a certain point, self-interest also kicks in — voters are probably more inclined to like lawmakers who can point to some accomplishments. “Look at all the bills that didn’t go anywhere” makes for lousy campaign commercials. . . . . . . . . . "We can’t blame everything on the Senate. The average American doesn’t realize that,” Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) said. “We need to quit passing bills over here and cheering for ourselves when we know they’re dead on arrival over there.”

Again, the whole blog post can be found here, give it a read.