Right to Boehner: Be bold on 2014 agenda

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House conservatives plan to push their leaders to be bold and adopt an election-year agenda that would include floor votes on an ObamaCare alternative, a tax overhaul, surveillance reform and anti-poverty measures.

 

Top Republicans have been quiet on how aggressive they want to be in the run-up to November’s midterm elections and have said they would wait to hear from the rank and file at a retreat later this month before deciding their course.

 

But the effort by conservatives could encounter resistance from leaders favoring a politically safer approach that seeks to focus public attention squarely on the unpopular healthcare law and an economy that they argue remains a liability for congressional Democrats.

“This is no time for Republicans to duck in a foxhole. This is the time for Republicans to lead,” Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) said Wednesday at an event sponsored by the Heritage Foundation.

 

The most ardent conservatives in the House have been frustrated by a series of fiscal defeats in recent months — beginning with the end of the government shutdown in October — in which they have been shunted to sidelines while party leaders cut deals with Democrats.