Does the GOP ‘Groove’ Guarantee Gridlock?

The Senate’s passage of the financial regulation bill and news that the blown BP well has, for the time being, finally stopped gushing oil into the Gulf, combined to make Thursday a good day for the Obama administration. On the same day, though, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told a gathering of young Republicans that the GOP is poised to battle back against the “damage” Democrats have wrought. “We’ve got our groove back,” he said

With the economy sputtering and the jobless rate stuck near 10 percent, political wizards like Charlie Cook are predicting huge Republican gains in the midterm elections, enough to possibly take back the House and close the gap in the Senate. Looking forward, major pieces of President Obama’s agenda, like comprehensive immigration reform and climate legislation that includes cap-and-trade, appear dead and buried.

Furthermore, House Democrats made it harder this week for their Senate colleagues to pass bills that face Republicans resistance next year (via Jon Chait):

Recognizing that Democrats would be reluctant to record “yes” votes for a budget that would augment the deficit, the House leadership opted to deem as passed a “budget enforcement resolution” instead, just before the July 4 recess. While the distinction between an enforcement resolution and a full budget is largely technical, there is one crucial difference: Under the enforcement resolution, Democrats can no longer use a parliamentary tactic known as budget reconciliation next year — a process Democrats had hoped might allow them to pass key pieces of legislation, such as a jobs bill, with 51 votes in the Senate, as opposed to the usual 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.

Under the arcane rules of the Senate, budget reconciliation can only be used if it was written into the budget rules passed the previous year. With no full budget, there can be no reconciliation. [emphasis added]

Let’s assume the economy continues to stumble along and the Democrats take a bath in the midterms, lose the House, and retain a two or three vote edge in the Senate. The attention then turns to the GOP. Congressional Republicans played defense when facing a huge disadvantage in seats held, but what would they do with their expanded power on Capitol Hill? What do they want to accomplish, and would they be willing to cut deals or would they continue to play defense in anticipation of the 2012 elections?

Los Angeles Times’ Doyle McManus reports “a quiet civil war is brewing over what, if anything,” the party should say about it’s priorities, in terms of crafting a unified message like 1994’s Contract With America. He was pessimistic about the GOP coming up with a specific agenda at all.

One option would be Rep. Paul Ryan’s “roadmap,” an ambitious set of proposals that would rework huge portions of the tax and entitlement systems. National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, who favors the plan, called it “a sweeping, bold, and humane assault on the welfare state and our debt crisis.” On the other hand, Paul Krugman listens to statements from GOP leadership and argues their concern over the deficit is a ruse, and instead they’ll fight for “budget-busting tax cuts” that will necessitate deep spending cuts – in otherwords, the good old “starve the beast” plan.

These don’t seem like palatable options to the White House or congressional Democrats when the 112th Congress meets next year. I doubt Obama wants to the president who privatized Social Security or eliminated all capital gains and corporate income taxes, and he’s not a supply-sider who thinks tax cuts will automatically and inevitably spur economic growth.

Nevertheless, political scientist Jonathan Bernstien is correct when he points out the obvious — it’s too early to tell. Perhaps the GOP, Democratic lawmakers, and the president will learn to play nice and cut deals on small-bore, centrist legislation. Yet between intense ideological polarization in Washington, a close split in the number of seats between parties in Congress, a vocal activist base on the right calling for radical steps like the abolition of the IRS, huge and controversial issues like immigration that need tackling, Senate Democrats’ inability to use reconciliation to foil filibusters, and the looming 2012 presidential election, what you’ve got is all the makings for gridlock.