GOP Rows Snarl Debt Deal

The Hill reports:

A series of policy battles that have broken out among House Republicans poses a significant challenge to Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) effort to unify his troops on a bill raising the nation’s debt ceiling.

In recent weeks, intra-party skirmishes have emerged on a range of issues, including patent reform and a proposed tax holiday.

There has also been tension between authorizers and appropriators, evidenced by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton’s (R-Mich.) crying foul over a provision in a pending agriculture spending bill. Earlier this month, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Pete King (R-N.Y.) voted against the homeland security spending bill, citing cuts to port security and transit grants.

These various disputes come amid continued grumbling about the deal Boehner struck on the fiscal 2011 budget bill and second-guessing in the GOP conference over the Medicare reforms called for in Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) blueprint, which passed the lower chamber in April.

Members of the new House majority are also grappling with the future of the Afghanistan war, an issue Republicans have, by and large, been united on for nearly a decade.

University of Kansas political science professor Burdett Loomis said that these squabbles are a “huge problem” for Boehner.

“It’s a huge problem … [Boehner] has to decide how much capital he wants to invest. … He has to not alienate people, like a committee chairman, who he might really need on a debt-limit vote,” Loomis said.