Kevin McCarthy conceded change hasn’t come as fast as he’d like. | JAY WESTCOTT/POLITICO GOP majority stumbles into recess

The new Republican majority came in with a roar, but it’s crawling into the August break with a whimper.

Here’s what they will have on the scoreboard before the election: a Senate-driven, two-year highway bill; a six-month extension of government spending at levels they’ve all decried as too high; and no farm bill.


They haven’t completely reformed the Tax Code, they haven’t made a dent in the national debt, and the government isn’t appreciably smaller or more efficient than it was when they were sworn in. And instead of dismantling the president’s health care overhaul, they watched the Senate sit on their repeal effort and the Supreme Court lend its imprimatur to the law.

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The Republican Party is more pure, but the nation is unchanged, saddled with more debt than when the GOP won the House majority. The gap between who Republicans want to be and who they are is profound, and it’s clear that another election — even if Mitt Romney wins the presidency — might not change their ability to put a truly conservative imprint on Washington.

The frustration among veteran and rookie lawmakers is evident.

There are those who think the environment is too difficult for middle-ground compromise to work. In announcing his retirement on Tuesday, veteran Ohio Rep. Steve LaTourette, a member of the vaunted 1995 freshman class of Republicans, said he’d “reached the conclusion that the atmosphere today and the reality that exists in the House of Representatives no longer encourages the finding of common ground.”

And others say change hasn’t come quickly enough. Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), a freshman and a Harvard Law graduate, said he ran for Congress to make the “structural changes” necessary to eliminate trillion-dollar-a-year deficits. “I am not disheartened, but I am deeply aware that we did not make those changes in the first year and half of my time here,” he said.

In their defense, Republican lawmakers are quick to tick off lists of their accomplishments, each of which required compromise with Senate Democrats and the White House. They include rare year-over-year spending cuts, three trade agreements and enacting parts of the president’s jobs plan that help small businesses raise capital and put off going public. They have also passed plans to blunt automatic defense cuts and this week will vote to freeze income tax rates.

In an interview with POLITICO Live’s On Congress show, set to air Wednesday, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said: “We’ve moved a lot of legislation in a short period of time,” citing trade bills and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, but conceded change hasn’t come as fast as he’d like because of the inability to work with the Senate.

Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, a California Republican in House GOP leadership who is retiring at the end of the year after 31 years in office, is also among those who say Republicans have accomplished a lot — but not everything he would have liked.

“There are things that have disappointed me. I make no bones about that,” he told POLITICO. “The fact that we’re now at this position where on tax reform we have to do what we’re doing. I would have liked to have thought that we could have done this earlier, dealt with this tax issue. I am one who believes that the greatest opportunity to deal with entitlement reform is when you have divided government because neither party can then point the finger of blame at the other. So I think we’ve missed opportunities to do a number of things.”

There is particular frustration with leadership’s decision to completely forgo a farm bill and instead pass a pared-back disaster relief bill for drought-stricken farmers. Rural lawmakers will have to go home and face voters without an update to farm policy.

“There will be a farm bill, and I’ve worked very hard to remind everybody in this chamber about that,” Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas of Oklahoma said when asked if his leadership team is supportive of negotiating on a farm bill this Congress. “It’s just when will it happen. And I’m encouraging everyone on both sides of the room that sooner is better than later.”

Many Republicans do talk about bills they’ve passed that have died in the Senate, but that line of defense has frustrated members of the GOP who hoped to legislate more.

“We probably deserve an ‘incomplete’ because there is still a lot that needs to be done,” said Indiana Rep. Todd Young. “That process starts, though, with each side listing their priorities and laying out a vision for America’s future. Then you identify common ground and get the easy stuff out of the way and then get input from the American people while you debate the rest. Republicans have made that list and laid out that vision. … That’s the right first step, and because we are the only party that has taken it, I think we deserve a higher grade than Congress as a whole.”

Young contends voters chose to put the government in neutral for a reason and that Republicans have gone above and beyond the expectations of a minority party by passing bills that show where they would lead if given control of both houses of Congress and the White House.

“I think part of the reason the American people chose a divided government is because they wanted Washington to slow down and have more open and transparent debates on some big issues. If your measuring stick is the number of bills that have been passed, you’re probably going to be disappointed,” he said. “But if you’re looking at the level of debate we’re giving to some of these fundamental issues like job creation and federal spending and taxes, then I think we’ve done what voters told us they wanted in 2010.”

This week, the House is voting on principles for tax reform, disaster relief for drought-stricken farmers and a mess of bills, like the March of Dimes Commemorative Coin Act of 2011, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Commemorative Coin Act and the Mille Lacs Lake Freedom To Fish Act of 2012.

At this point, some of those folks who came in on the anti-Washington wave are still keeping their faith in House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

“Look, the speaker’s got a tough job,” said Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.). “I wouldn’t want his job. I know the speaker’s intent is to continue to bring regular order, to bring some certainty and to try to prevent this government from coming to a screeching halt. I’m going to put my trust and confidence in the speaker to keep the government moving and addressing the short-term and long-term issues. And I’m confident the speaker is doing that.”

Still, some Republicans say it has become too difficult for the two parties and the two chambers to do the nation’s work. Primary elections and the growing influence of the conservative wing of the GOP have left many of the dwindling number of deal-making Republicans to reassess their place in Congress.

LaTourette said Republicans who want to make deals now face angry taunts: “You’re a coward; you’re a facilitator; you’re an appeaser; you’re a RINO” — a Republican In Name Only.

Former Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana, another member of the big freshman class of 1995, said the energy of the new Republican majority has sometimes been misdirected, at least from a strategic standpoint.

The GOP erred, he argues, by making last year’s debt limit vote a test of strength.

“It had to pass, which everyone should have known, so it made them look more whiny than militant,” he said. “Ronald Reagan knew to invade Grenada, not Russia.”

The distance between who Republicans set out to be and how they’ve ended up governing is striking in other areas. Here’s one example: The promise to run the most open House in history is hardly that. Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) doesn’t talk to the press corps on a regular basis or in an open format to discuss the House floor schedule, which his predecessors as majority leader — Tom DeLay, Steny Hoyer, John Boehner and Dick Armey — all did.

When reporters have inquired when he will restart, his staff has been dead silent. At a recent press conference, he made his statement and escaped before reporters could ask a question. Doug Heye, his communications director, said that “we have worked to increase the majority leader’s accessibility to the media” by sitting him down with small groups of reporters.

Then there’s government funding. For the past several months, GOP leadership staff has dismissed the spending levels agreed to with Democrats as “a ceiling, not a floor.” On Tuesday, Boehner announced that he would pass a government funding bill at those levels — GOP leadership staff said it was the right political play.

“Taking this issue off the table will keep the larger focus on jobs, the economy and President [Barack] Obama’s failed economic policies,” the aide said. “That’s where Republicans win and Democrats lose.”

This, from the gang that came in screaming that politics were irrelevant, that they were in Washington to do the right thing.

Tarini Parti contributed to this report.