The last time congressional Republicans have done the major lifting of making domestic policy was Mr. Bush’s first term, a productive time
that included an expansion of Medicare to cover prescription drugs, the No Child Left Behind education law, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that reshaped securities law and tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.
In 2015, Mr. Boehner called conservative members of his party who sought government shutdowns “false prophets”
who “whip people into a frenzy believing they can accomplish things they know are never going to happen.”
If you make a career opposing even the basic work of making the government run, it’s hard to pivot to writing major legislation.
Only 51 of the 238 current House Republicans were in Congress then — meaning a significant majority of Republican
House members have never been in Congress at a time when their party was making major domestic policy.
“It requires a different kind of muscle, and that muscle has atrophied.”
He noted that Speaker Paul Ryan has tried to keep some of those governing muscles toned by passing elements of his
“Better Way” agenda, even when they had no shot of being passed by the Senate or signed by President Obama.
In debt ceiling standoffs in 2011 and 2013 — the latter combined with a government shutdown — congressional leaders were pushed into confrontation by a base
that didn’t want to compromise with President Obama to keep the government running.