If Republicans win control of the House, the job of implementing the new agenda would partly fall to Texas Republicans who would seize powerful jobs.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling , who helped announce the GOP's Pledge to America this week, would help write smaller budgets and reform government support for the housing market. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, would push to repeal the health care law from his perch as a top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Both men are likely to become chairmen of congressional subcommittees if Republicans win in November. They would have a platform to push their party's agenda and a bully pulpit to question the Obama administration, which Burgess said he'd use to spotlight how the health law is being implemented.

"I would advise the secretary of Health and Human Services and the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to save the dates of January, February and March if I am subcommittee chairman," Burgess said.

"We will have those oversight hearings," he said. "They will begin quickly, and they will last until we've done all the work we should have done this past six months."

Two other Texans could become chairmen of full committees: Rep. Joe Barton , R-Arlington, and Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Rockwall.

Barton would need the party to waive a rule that would prohibit him from serving another two years as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Hall would become chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, where he said he'd target savings by cutting duplicative research programs.

More proposals

The GOP pledge includes several other health care proposals that Texas Republicans have advocated, including limiting lawsuits against health care providers and allowing insurers to market policies across state lines.

The pledge also contains a permanent extension of the lower, Bush-era tax rates for all taxpayers, including the wealthiest Americans, and a promise to roll back the authority of regulatory agencies.

Even if House Republicans succeeded in passing such legislation, the hurdles to any of it becoming law would be high. Gridlock looks more likely, with a Democratic Senate checking the House and President Barack Obama able to veto any legislation he doesn't like.

While Democrats dismissed the GOP plan as light on specifics, so, too, did some conservatives, who noted that it doesn't include a strategy for balancing the budget or reducing future federal deficits driven by health and safety-net spending.

While the pledge calls for cutting $100 billion in spending next year, the federal deficit is projected to be $1.07 trillion in 2011, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

"It is not a 20-year plan," said Hensarling, R-Dallas, who has sponsored legislation in the past to require balanced budgets. "It's a governing agenda [for the] here and now based upon what we heard from the American people."

Republicans say that agenda will include tackling reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage giants. The companies were crucial for supporting the housing market, but they were seized by the federal government in 2008.

Finding replacements

Democrats and Republicans agree that Fannie and Freddie aren't coming back. But it'll be up to Republicans like Hensarling – if they gain the majority – to decide how to replace their role in the housing market.

Even Republicans acknowledge they would have to proceed carefully. The housing market remains weak in many parts of the country, and yanking government support would weaken it – and the economy.

"We're going to face some of the same issues that [Democrats] are facing – a troubled housing market sensitive to financing," said Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Coppell. "We'll have to be cautious, but we'll have to make changes."

In the House, that job would fall to the Financial Services Committee, which also wrote the financial reform law that passed this year.

Shortly after the bill passed the House in July, Republican leaders said it should be repealed. But the pledge doesn't include the law's repeal on its to-do list.

George Rasley, a spokesman for Hensarling, said the congressman would "absolutely" seek to modify provisions of the financial law with proposals that Democrats defeated when the bill was passed.

"They can't repeal it with the president there," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the committee's current chairman. "But they could un-fund it. We need the SEC and other agencies to have the funding to do what we've asked them to do."

Unless Republicans win a majority in the Senate – which is less likely than a takeover of the House – it will be difficult to push through any big changes, lawmakers say.

"We are more likely headed to a period of gridlock," Marchant said. "We'll need the help of some of the conservative Democrats, but after this election, I think a lot of the conservative Democrats will be anxious to help us."


To view the original article, click here.