Jim Jordan for speaker next year? He wants GOP focused on THIS year

With Paul Ryan stepping down, conservative Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is a speculative candidate for speaker of House. But he doesn't want Republicans to think about who will be the leader next year. Jordan wants Republicans focused on keeping their promises this year.

On Wednesday, Jordan criticized his fellow Republicans for having a show vote on a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution mere weeks after passing the second largest deficit-financed spending package in American history.

"Everybody on this floor knows this is all pretend. The time to deal with spending was three weeks ago," Jordan said on the floor of the House of Representatives. "That was the time for political courage, some discipline, some political will ... when we got a 2,232-page bill that we had 15 hours to look at."

"That was when we needed to deal with spending."

In March, the Republican majority in Congress passed a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill. Conservatives saw this as a betrayal of the principles Republicans campaigned on because it did not fund President Trump's priorities, including a border wall, while it funded sanctuary cities, Planned Parenthood, and grew the government. Jordan was one of just 25 House Republicans to vote against a procedural rule advancing the bill toward final passage and taking away the right of members to offer amendments to improve the bill or cut spending.

The balanced budget amendment considered by the House this week is problematic in itself because it would enshrine endless tax increases into the Constitution. But aside from this, Republicans know it has no chance of passing anyway because a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress, and they don't have the votes.

"No wonder Americans hate this place. No wonder they're cynical," Jordan said. "This ticks me off. There's just no other way to say it, and more importantly, it ticks off the American people, and it should."

Jordan asked if Republicans would get back to doing what they told voters they would do. "Or are we going to keep doing pretend things like this?"

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