Republicans hope that putting the sequester front and center will help them. | REUTERS GOP thinks sequester is better fight

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — Republicans are diving into a strategy to resolve the debt ceiling standoff that they believe will maximize their leverage in the upcoming fiscal fights and show they’re not trying to plunge the nation into default.

At their three-day retreat here, the GOP regrouped following the fiscal cliff crisis and decided to move forward next week with a bill to lift the debt cap — with a demand the Senate pass a budget or dock the pay of lawmakers.


( Also on POLITICO: John Cornyn: ‘We will raise the debt ceiling’)

The surprise GOP move is an effort to reorder the upcoming legislative fights — the debt ceiling, sequester and funding government operations — with President Barack Obama to their advantage. They hope to raise the debt ceiling for a mere three months and then return to it once those other battles are over, despite Obama’s staunch opposition to a short-term hike.

Republicans hope that putting the sequester fight front and center places them on politically more popular ground since Obama will have to act to stop the steep spending cuts from taking effect. The president has said he wants more “balanced” cuts than simply slashing Pentagon funding, and they hope he will put more entitlement cuts on the table with his back against the wall.

“We’ll be having a fight with the president over cutting spending and how to cut spending, and without the threat of default,” a top GOP leadership aide said. “The backstop will be [the] threat of spending cuts that are quite popular.”

( Also on POLITICO: House GOP grapples with future)

Failing to lift the debt ceiling is dangerous ground for Republicans: Internal GOP polling shows that 51 percent of Americans would blame the party for the debt ceiling not getting raised.

Under the new strategy, legislative priorities would be somewhat juggled: The House would consider raising the debt ceiling this month, extending government funding and stopping or modifying the sequester the next and finally another debt ceiling hike in April. It’s part of a new recognition by Speaker John Boehner and Republican leadership: They can’t force Obama’s hand, but they can try to reshuffle the deck in their favor.

The thinking — laid out by several top GOP aides and lawmakers — goes like this: Republicans are aiming to get the debt ceiling fight out of the way in January so they can move on to what they consider more fertile ground for them: the battles over government funding and automatic spending reductions known as the sequester.

The more outwardly political goal of the GOP strategy is to showcase what they say is the Senate Democrats’ three-year delay in passing a budget.

If Democrats agree to pass the short-term debt ceiling hike with the budget requirement attached, it would force the party to lay out its spending priorities with less than two years until a half-dozen red-state Democrats face reelection. If they don’t, Republicans will paint them as irresponsible stewards of the public’s dollars. Such a measure also would satisfy conservative Republicans pushing for big spending cuts.

But practically, Republicans think they have more leverage if they reserve their firepower for fights over government funding and the sequester.

Here’s why: Top GOP aides say the spending battles — which will sprout in February and March — give them the leverage Obama enjoyed in the debate over the Bush tax hikes at the end of 2012.

Just like the tax hikes would have automatically taken hold on Jan. 1 without the fiscal cliff deal, steep automatic spending reductions will take hold on March 2 unless Congress acts. So when Boehner eventually negotiates with Obama over government funding and the sequester — which the GOP hopes will be paired in one fight — the GOP thinks Obama will want to protect the Pentagon by replacing the spending cuts with more targeted reductions. The goal of the Republican leadership is to convince Obama to enact some entitlement reform as part of those cuts.

Furthermore, if the sequester kicks in, Boehner will legitimately be able to tell conservatives that government funding has been slashed to the low levels supported by the conservative Republican Study Committee.

Then, in April, Republicans think they will be in a better position to fight on the debt ceiling once again.

“A long-term increase in the debt limit that is not preceded by meaningful and responsible reductions in government spending might avert a default, but it would also invite a downgrade of our nation’s credit that damages our economy, hurts families and small businesses — and destroys jobs,” Boehner told House Republicans in a closed-strategy session on Friday.

Of course, the House GOP strategy is laced with risk — much like most things House Republicans undertake these days.

It’s unclear why Republicans think they’ll have more leverage on the debt ceiling in April — they can hardly explain it themselves. And after the fights of the past year, it’s not even clear that Boehner and his leadership team have the support they need for their plan.

Leadership has not whipped the bill they intend to pass next week — they are moving forward after several hours of talking at the Kingsmill Resort here. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is opposed to the measure, which means Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) must find 218 votes on his own. Republicans were unable to do that in December, when Boehner looked to pass a GOP tax bill.

McCarthy defended his whip team in an interview with POLITICO.

“Look, we’ve always gotten there. Judge this — in the first term of the Democrats were in the majority they lost more than 30 motions to recommit,” McCarthy said, referring to procedural votes meant to put the majority on its heels. “We’ve never lost a member of Congress. We have passed three free-trade agreements, and we didn’t need one vote. … So yeah, do we have tough things to do and does it look tough going into it? But we’ve been very, very productive on that and much so if you do true measurements.”

For now, some Democrats are signaling they are open to this gambit.

“It is reassuring to see Republicans beginning to back off their threat to hold our economy hostage,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) spokesman said. “If the House can pass a clean debt ceiling increase to avoid default and allow the United States to meet its existing obligations, we will be happy to consider it.”

The White House released a statement saying it was “encouraged that there are signs that congressional Republicans may back off their insistence on holding our economy hostage.”

The new strategy comes at a tough time for the party. Their approval ratings are at 27 percent, according to internal GOP numbers.

David Winston, who polls for Boehner, unveiled numbers at the retreat, showing 24 percent of respondents think of generally negative things like “liars, corrupt, not doing a good job” when they hear “Republicans in Congress.”

Fifteen percent associate “Blocking/obstructionists/don’t compromise/stubborn against Obama” with House Republicans, while 8 percent associate positive things with the party.

Republicans have also lost other advantages. In October, 47 percent thought Republicans were more focused on jobs and the economy, compared with 45 percent who thought the same of Obama. The numbers have flipped — 53 percent believe Obama is more focused on those key issues, while just 35 percent think that of House Republicans.

And speaking directly to the GOP’s problems, just 37 percent of people in the poll thought cutting spending creates jobs.

Still missing from the Republicans’ agenda here: anything outside of possibly cataclysmic economic scenarios. There was no talk about immigration or guns.

As the retreat wrapped up, Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute urged Republicans to quit talking about numbers and stats. Instead, he said they should revert to talking about free enterprise and the human effects of their policies.

Manu Raju and Anna Palmer contributed to this report.