WASHINGTON, May 3 (UPI) -- Though they seem hobbled by the ethics war centered on Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and confounded by the challenges posed by the president's domestic agenda, Republicans in the House believe they have accomplished much in the current Congress' first 100 days.
A release issued Tuesday by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., lists accomplishments he believes the Republican majority can be proud of and will give U.S. small business a major boost.
First, there is the energy bill, which Republicans say will create nearly half a million new jobs across different sectors of the U.S. economy while laying the groundwork for a reduction in U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
Second is the legislation permanently repealing the federal death tax, something the Bush tax cuts achieved on a temporary basis. According to Hastert's office, more than 80 percent of U.S. small businesses, according to one survey, spend at least $25,000 per year on efforts to avoid the tax and its impact.
Third is the effort to end court shopping by trial attorneys looking for favorable judges to hear the kind of mass tort complaints known as class action lawsuits.
Hastert also points to the federal highway bill, the first major overhaul of U.S. bankruptcy laws in at least a decade, expanded federal job-training programs and the passage of a budget resolution that keeps to the schedule of cutting the deficit in half in five years while keeping the Bush tax cuts in place.
"We have been hard at work passing job creating legislation that reduces the economic burdens on small business owners," Hastert said. To him, the accomplishments of the first 100 days "are spurring economic growth" and, he promised, "We'll continue to do everything we can to keep the economic engine roaring."
So why isn't there more cheering?
Partly because the polling data reflects a general level of dissatisfaction with Congress. The April 13-16 CBS News poll of 1,149 U.S. adults found that a majority, 51 percent, disapproved of the job Congress is doing. The 1,010 adults nationwide surveyed April 4-7 by the Gallup organization had congressional disapproval at 54 percent. But the disgust is, to both the benefit and detriment of the majority, spread equally rather than confined to the Republicans.
The April 5-10 Harris poll of 1,010 U.S. adults found that 61 percent gave "only fair" or "poor" marks to the job Republicans are doing in Congress while 64 percent gave the same rating to the Democrats.
A Pew poll from mid-March of 1,505 U.S. adults registered disapproval for "the job the Democratic leaders in Congress are doing" at 44 percent while only 37 percent said they approved. The numbers for the Republican leadership were almost exactly the same; 44 percent disapproved and only 39 percent approved.
Hastert's release is crafted in a way that reflects the advice given to congressional Republicans by pollster David Winston, who said in a recent memo to GOP leaders that the nation's focus has returned to the economy and jobs.
While Winston contends the Democrats have major hurdles to overcome in their battle to regain the trust of the American electorate and that their refusal to offer substantive solutions hurts them, the shift in issues plays to Democrats' traditional stronghold -- jobs, jobs, jobs -- and creates an ideological and political conundrum for House GOP leaders.
On the one hand is the swing portion of the U.S. electorate, which cares less about political pork and expects government to deliver services; one the other are the center-right tax-and-spending cutters who dominate the GOP base.
The conflict is clearly illustrated in the way Hastert's release described the highway bill. "With more than 67 percent of our nation's freight moving on highways, the transportation reauthorization bill funds our federal highways at $283.9 billion and helps increase the quality of our transportation infrastructure. Not only will we be able to move products more efficiently, economists estimate that for every $1 billion dollars spent to improve our highways, 40,000 jobs will be created."
The average voter reads that statement to mean the legislation, if it gets through the Senate, will result in better roads, more jobs and even, perhaps, some decline in the price of consumer goods. The politically aware GOP base voter reads it to mean higher levels of government spending to fuel more political pork that won't really improve the quality of roads and runs counter to the imperative to keep federal spending in check. The base voter also understands that, given the nature of the U.S. Senate, the $283.9 billion is much closer to being a floor rather than a spending ceiling.
Republicans have, to this point, done well to convince their base to remain with them because they have sold them on the idea that things would only be worse under the Democrats. But eventually, as George H.W. Bush found out in 1992 after he agreed to an income-tax hike, that message stops working.
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(The Peter Principles explores issues in national and local politics, the American culture and the media. It is written by Peter Roff, UPI political analyst and 20-year veteran of the Washington scene.)
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