After Obamacare repeal fails, Charlie Dent looks to infrastructure, spending deadline

March 28--After last weeks' failure to pass health care reform, President Donald Trump and Republican congressional leaders have signaled the next goal -- federal tax reform.

But Charlie Dent cautioned at a luncheon in Harrisburg on Monday that the intraparty dynamic that he sees as dooming the Obamacare repeal effort must be changed before lawmakers tackle another major topic, even ones as necessary as tax reform and spending on roads and bridges.

He pointed out simpler things, like lifting the debt ceiling to pay federal obligations, or even passing basic spending bills, have proven difficult on Capitol Hill in recent years.

Dent says GOP leaders are failing by trying to win over conservative House Republicans "who are not going to vote for the bill anyway." In doing so, Dent points out, the leaders are alienating moderates like him.

"We in Congress have had a difficult time doing the basics, the fundamentals of government, the blocking and the tackling," Dent said during the Pennsylvania Press Club event. "If you can't get that right, how do you do the big things? How do you throw the ball down the field?"

The effort to repeal and replace Obamacare was illustrative: The bloc of conservative lawmakers held out, eventually drawing a series of concessions from GOP leaders, including changes to the repeal bill that cost moderate votes. Yet many of the conservatives remained against the bill as it was withdrawn from the planned vote.

Dent said that dynamic -- which he says has lingered since the internal fight that ousted House Speaker John Boehner two years ago -- needs to be addressed to prevent congressional Republicans from lurching from one self-made crisis to another.

Dent's comments Monday come as Republicans are assessing what went wrong with the Obamacare repeal bill and deciding what issue to tackle next.

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