Press Staff Blog

Today, Speaker Boehner suggested the possibility of a six month extension of the highway bill, after his own House Republicans have failed to coalesce around a bill, despite months of deliberations.

Boehner then:

From Washington D.C. to Washington State, the public outcry over the GOP’s stall tactics on the highway bill continues to grow. Despite the fact that 28,000 construction jobs were lost last month, House Republicans continue to threaten to walk away from negotiations unless they get absolutely everything they want.

So far, House Republicans’ summer agenda is not drawing rave reviews.

Don’t look now, but the GOP appears to be taking baby steps away from their rigid refusal to include revenues as part of a balanced deficit reduction plan. Facing a “fiscal cliff” later this year, all solutions need to be on the table. But so far the GOP has exclusively focused on spending cuts and walked away from any sort of comprehensive deal.

Here’s what House Republicans AREN’T doing this week – focusing on jobs and preventing student loan interest rates from doubling:

Wanted to make sure you all saw the Make It In America bill on the House Floor tonight.  H.R. 4041, the Export Promotion Reform Act, is bipartisan legislation introduced by Reps. Howard Berman and Don Manzullo.  This bill would allow companies to increase exports of U.S. goods and services and add jobs for American workers.      

In case you missed it while at your Memorial Day weekend barbeque, wanted to pass along this Washington Post piece about Republicans refusing to take Grover Norquist’s pledge.

Stop us if you have heard this one before: Speaker Boehner’s debt limit demands are unproductive at best and threatening our fragile economic recovery at worst.

But don’t take our word for it, just ask University of Pennsylvania Wharton School professors Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, who write in Bloomberg today: