Arkansas Sen-elect Tom Cotton, right, adds his name to a list of Republicans proposing to pull the purse strings on targeted legislative actions in response to President Obama’s plan to issue executive amnesty. (Photos: AP)
With President Obama’s decision to issue executive amnesty looming large, a consensus GOP response is beginning to emerge and it doesn’t consist of impeachment or shutdowns. Arkansas Sen.-elect Tom Cotton became the last of a growing list of Republicans suggesting the GOP will selectively block the president’s spending like the GOP has repeatedly and successfully done with the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
Cotton, a Republican congressman who was recently and overwhelmingly elected to the Senate after he defeated incumbent Democrat Mark Pryor, told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” that the Republican-controlled lower chamber could pass a series of spending bills that limit the president’s ability to spend on Social Security cards for illegal immigrants.
Cotton, along with Oklahoma Sen.-elect James Lankford, who also is a GOP House member, both said that the GOP will not be pushing for a shutdown, which is thought to be largely unpopular with Americans.
“I don’t think anybody wants to shut down government,” Cotton said. “We’re not pursing some government shutdown,” Lankford added.
While the two rising stars in the GOP seemed on the same page, they are but freshmen senators, nonetheless. However, senior Senate Republicans have echoed the strategy in recent days following the news reports.
“Congress has the power of the purse. The President cannot spend a dime unless Congress appropriates it,” Republican Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions wrote in a recent op-ed in Politico. He said Congress would stop Obama by barring money from being used for that purpose.
He argued that similar tactics have been used by both Democrats and Republicans in the past to prevent the president from closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, another move that is widely unpopular among the American people.
“This is an action by the president of the United States to give amnesty to millions of individuals, which Congress has explicitly refused to do,” Session said in a statement. “Under the current law, they are illegally here and unable to work.”
Cotton also compared the plan to the GOP’s strategy of passing a Defense spending bill in June that included a provision that barred funding for transferring detainees in the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay. With Cotton and other newly-elected senators enjoying the support of groups that are staunchly opposed to the president’s move to issue executive amnesty, as well as a slew of new House members, it is worth noting that it would appear those groups are on the same page. That is, at least for now.
“This is a fight Republicans can win if they unite in opposition to the president and refuse to fund his executive order,” said Senate Conservatives Fund President Ken Cuccinelli. “If Republicans hold strong, they can put enormous pressure on the Democrats to abandon the president on this issue.”
Of course, the president could simply not budge and hope to force a government shutdown. He has made it crystal clear he is willing to “poison the well” by issuing the order for executive amnesty, a move most D.C. operatives on both sides agree is meant to pick a fight with the newly elected Congress, rather than actually fix the issue of illegal immigration.
“Yes, it may lead to a temporary government shutdown because the president has good reason to think Republicans will blink,” Cuccinelli said. “But if the party holds strong, Democrats in Congress will be forced to abandon the president’s reckless action.”
A little known fact regarding the past government shutdown was that the GOP actually had a slight majority support for delaying ObamaCare until the leadership began to get week in the knees. Weekly tracking polls conducted before and after the shutdown found a clear trend — as the GOP Senate leadership abandoned Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Utah Sen. Mike Lee, so did the people.
It remains wholly unclear whether the Democrats — who ended up losing badly despite the shutdown anyway, let’s not forget — will feel as inclined to back the president this time around. The first shutdown transpired before Obama was awarded PolitFact’s “Lie of the Year” award, and before his approval ratings and favorability ratings both began to plummet.
