Congressional Republicans and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) have halfheartedly said in the past that they'd like to return to "regular order" which means completing the appropriations process through appropriate committees and debating amendments on the floor of the House, but Ryan has just set a new record for blocking amendments.
The latest decision to not allow amendments to their tax cut bill marks the 49th time Republican leaders have blocked amendments on the floor.
Asked about the matter during a news conference Tuesday morning, Ryan denied that assessment and noted more bills have passed through committees this Congress than under Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and both Bushes — though not all of those have received floor consideration or passed the House. [...]
On Monday night, the House Rules Committee approved its 49th closed rule this year, the new record for a session. The result is that more than 1,300 amendments also have been blocked from consideration.
Democrats — and Republican proponents of open rules — argue that shutting out input from lawmakers leads to worse policy because it keeps ideas from being considered in the light of day.
"More bills have passed through committees" he says. Someone get Paul Ryan a gold star!
That includes bills for renaming post offices, by the way. I wouldn't say that counts, but Paul Ryan desperately needs it to count.
As you know, our Republican-controlled Congress hasn't completed the appropriations process in years. They didn't even attempt to complete the process this year. I was going to say they skipped the process so they could focus on repealing Obamacare, but that's not necessarily the truth. The truth is there's always something. There's always some excuse.
The bottom line is they're incapable of completing the appropriations process or returning to "regular order" without stepping on their own dicks or, you know, passing measures to bring back Confederate flags or some other nonsense.
The last time Republicans actually tried (and failed) to complete the appropriations process was during former Speaker John Boehner's last year in office and, as you may recall, they abandoned the process because they were going to be forced to vote for (or against) Confederate flags at federal cemeteries. Abandoning the process allowed them to skip that vote and they haven't even tried to complete the process since then.
If the federal government is funded beyond the end of the year with another continuing resolution, I don't expect they will complete the process next year either and we could still be on an Obama-era budget when fiscal 2019 arrives.