The "Problem Solvers Caucus" has never solved a single problem. Sit down.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a25135465/nancy-pelosi-speaker-race-problem-solvers-caucus/
The Hill has turned from a reliable Capitol Hill tip-sheet into a clickbait farm of the highest order, but it's also still well-wired into what's going on in the national legislature. So, on Thursday, it was no surprise to find that it was The Hill that sent the feline screeching from the burlap.
[Rep. Tom] Reed, co-chairman of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus
(Reed voted 97% of the time with TRUMP), said the growing frustration with gridlock, polarization and a top-heavy leadership approach in Congress are the reasons why several members in his party are willing to supply Pelosi with some Speaker votes in exchange for extracting an overhaul of the House rules
.
“I would be willing, as a Republican on the floor of the House, to support a Speaker candidate, including Nancy Pelosi, who supports these rule reforms,” Reed said at an event for The Hill sponsored by American University's School of Public Affairs and the Kennedy Political Union.
“There are other members that are as committed as I am to this on the Republican side that are willing to do that. But I’ll let them address it individually,” he added. Nancy Pelosi, who did not arrive at the Capitol Thursday morning on a turnip truck, was ready for this shell game.
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House Problem Solvers Caucus has solved few problems, bipartisan critics allege
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/05/house-problem-solvers-caucus-has-solved-few-problems-bipartisan-critics-allege/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9053dbceb93a
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Democrats in particular say that by supporting the group, members of their own party have given political cover to lawmakers with conservative voting records without forcing those same lawmakers to take concrete action to stall Republican legislation on health care or taxes. The caucus’s Republican members have on average voted in line with the White House’s position 93 percent of the time,
according to calculations based on FiveThirtyEight’s vote tracker, with at least nine Republicans in the group doing so more than 95 percent of the time.
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Grant said months ago he called friends who work as Republican staffers in the Capitol to ask about the Problem Solvers. “Everyone I talked to said, ‘This group has done almost nothing,’ ” Grant said. Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.), who has voted in line with President Trump about 96 percent of the time, has mentioned his involvement in the Problem Solvers group in every debate. More than 110 House Republicans — nearly half the caucus — have more bipartisan voting records than Smucker, according to the Lugar Center.
“[Smucker] can use it to say, ‘Look, I’m working across the aisle,’ even though he is 100 percent in line with Donald Trump, doesn’t hold any moderate positions and takes a ton of corporate money,” Jess King, his Democratic opponent, said of the Problem Solvers group. “People truly don’t understand what it’s all about, and it keeps coming up.”
Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), who has voted with Trump about 97 percent of the time, is the Republican co-chair of the caucus and uses it as his “number one talking point — like it’s obsessive, all the time; all the time,” said Tracy Mitrano, his Democratic opponent. The Buffalo News, in endorsing Reed, cited his work in the Problem Solvers as a key justification, as did the York Daily Record in Pennsylvania when endorsing Smucker.
Smucker and Reed both voted for the plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and they voted for Trump’s tax law last fall, two highly contentious and overwhelmingly partisan votes. Although they have more moderate voting records than the bulk of their caucus, many Republicans in the Problem Solvers caucus supported both efforts.
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The Slick “No Labels” Plan to Duck Debate, Cut Social Security and Coddle the 1% (2012)
No Labels is the creation of overpaid political insiders who work hand-in-glove with longtime opponents of Social Security and Medicare, pushing the agenda of the wealthiest among us by exploiting the public’s understandable frustration with gridlocked government.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/the-slick-no-labels-effor_b_1678389.html
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Who are they?
McKinnon worked on George W. Bush’s campaign before becoming a senior executive at Hill & Knowlton, the Beltway PR firm whose clients prior to his joining included the tobacco industry as it tried to suppress proof that cigarettes cause cancer, and Bank of Commerce and Credit International after it was hit with faced drug-money laundering charges. It continues to represent a variety of dictatorships around the world, and is currently helping the oil and gas industry confuse the public about the health implications of fracking.
Jacobson worked for Bill Clinton, conservative Democrat turned Chamber of Commerce lobbyist Evan Bayh, and and the right-leaning Democratic Leadership Council, and has a raised large sums of money for “centrist” (right-leaning) Democratic candidates. She also reportedly worked as a de facto industry lobbyist, as a PAC Director raising money for Congressional candidates sympathetic to her industry’s interests.[1] She is married to another Washington insider, Mark Penn, who is the CEO of Burson-Marsteller.
Walker is a longtime associate of right-wing billionaire Pete Peterson (who, as his press staff never fails to reminds me, sometimes also funds less political areas of economic research through his Foundation.) Walker’s work with Peterson, however, has been dedicated for many many years to the single-minded pursuit of a policy package that would cut Social Security and Medicare benefits while simultaneously lowering the top tax rate for the wealthiest Americans.
That agenda forms the basis of an American austerity program similar to that which is currently devastating Europe’s economy, and which has been packaged for domestic US consumption as the “Simpson Bowles plan.”
Bait and Switch
No Labels has a clever two-fold strategy: First, it packages far-right ideas as those of the “political mainstream” by ignoring polling data and instead finding members of the Washington elite in both parties - righting Clintonian Democrats, plus Republicans - willing to present them as a “consensus” view. Then it packages those proposals along with good ideas - and good-sounding ideas - so that it looks like they are the “reasonable” people in a world full of “extremists of the left and right.”
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