GOP leaders must change their ways to lead

The budget resolution introduced in the House of Representatives is a measure that must pass. Without it, there can be no tax reform. Republican Party leaders are hammering this point home with centrists and conservatives, both wings having voiced objections.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan are surely making it clear to their members how important this resolution is. But they must not use that as an excuse for browbeating reluctant members into voting aye.

That would be in line with recent behavior rather than making a necessary break from it. It has not worked when leadership has said, roughly, "Republicans simply must pass this, so we need all you guys to swallow your objections; take one for the team."

GOP leaders made that case in January when they pushed a $4.1 trillion budget that included a half-trillion-dollar deficit in one year and increased the national debt by $9 trillion, or about half, over a decade. Leaders told conservatives who objected that support wasn't optional because the resolution paved the way for Obamacare repeal via the reconciliation process, which is immune to Democratic filibusters.

But, in the end, GOP lawmakers never got to vote on straight repeal in either chamber, and House members who'd held their noses to vote for the budget then had to give equally resented support for a milquetoast Obamacare replacement bill. Both repeal and replace have also flopped lifeless in the Senate.