Republicans are looking ahead to tax reform after the Senate health care vote.
Republicans on Capitol Hill continued to grapple Friday with the collapse of their latest effort to repeal and replace Obamacare in the Senate.
The mood was glum in the House GOP conference meeting Friday morning after the early-morning vote. Members munched on breakfast, continued to digest the setback in the Senate and reassessed their agenda, after GOP leaders began the meeting by playing Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald.”
Leaders kicked off the meeting with the song — about the sinking of a ship on Lake Superior in 1975 — in light of the failed Senate health care vote.
“I thought at least they would get a bill to get us to get to conference. I was hoping for that, ” Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., told ABC News. “I know Sen. [Mitch] McConnell worked hard. I’ m a Kentuckian, he’s my home state senator, he really put a big effort into it. I know he was disappointed, and we’ re disappointed, but hopefully we can move forward.”
Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, in an effort to motivate his colleagues, showed clips of the Patriots’ Super Bowl win last winter, according to a source in the room.
One member of leadership also told the often-fractious group of House Republicans they were now “the most functional part of the U. S. government.”
Arch-conservative Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Alabama, interjected. “That’s a low bar! Low bar!”
While Brooks charged McConnell’s with last night’s failure, others lay the blame with the White House. Few commented on Arizona Sen. John McCain’s deciding vote.
“This president never really laid out core principles and didn’ t sell them to the American people, ” Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pennsylvania, told ABC News after the meeting.
President Donald Trump expressed frustration with the Senate Friday morning in a tweet, calling for a change to Senate rules to lower the threshold to pass major legislation. (The change wouldn’t have helped with health care early this morning, which failed to attract 51 votes after defections from Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and McCain.)
If Republicans are going to pass great future legislation in the Senate, they must immediately go to a 51 vote majority, not senseless 60…
… Even though parts of healthcare could pass at 51, some really good things need 60. So many great future bills & budgets need 60 votes….
Speaking to law enforcement officials on Long Island Friday, Trump suggested letting Obamacare “implode.”
“You can’t have everything, ” he said of the vote.
In a statement Friday, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said he was “disappointed and frustrated, but we should not give up.”
“I encourage the Senate to continue working toward a real solution that keeps our promise, ” he said.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N. C., the leader of the influential House Freedom Caucus, told reporters he is continuing discussions with senators, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S. C., on a way forward on health care that can attract broad GOP support in the Senate and House.
“Obviously, last night was a disappointment in the effort to repeal and replace. But it’s not a death knell, ” he said. “I’ m optimistic that we’ ll have another motion to proceed and ultimately have something to put on the president’s desk.”
He said Republicans are waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to review several additional Senate proposals.
Moderate GOP Sen. Collins met earlier week with a group of senators, including Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., on a bipartisan approach to health care.
“On health care, I hope we can work together to make the system better in a bipartisan way, ” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said Friday, suggesting Congress take up renewing key payments to insurers to stabilize the insurance system.
“I think at the very beginning we should stabilize the system. We should make permanent the cost-sharing which keeps people’s premiums down and keeps the counties that are covered up.”
Schumer, who said he spoke to Ryan about health care Friday, said relevant committee leaders have begun discussing the possibility of hearings on potential bipartisan health care reforms.
For House Republicans, the focus has also turned to tax reform. Earlier this week, Ryan, congressional leaders and the White House released a statement sketching out the broad contours of a reform deal. On the way out of conference today, Republicans were each handed small booklets. The title? “31 Reasons for Tax Reform.”
Congress will also have to address must-pass items this fall. Lawmakers will have to raise the debt ceiling and approve government funding.
