Rep. Blackburn: GOP Needs Goals to Regain White House, Senate

The Republican Party needs to formulate a clear-headed set of goals if it ever hopes to recapture the White House and Senate, Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee believes.

"We've got to admit that we're underwater when it comes to this PR game and we've got to set some definable goals," the Republican congresswoman told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

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"We've got to realize in advance that we have to make certain people understand [that], as the minority in Washington, even though we control the House, we control of one-half of one-third of the federal government and we can do a great job of block and tackle, we can do a great job of holding the bureaucrats accountable.

"But there's some things that we will not be able to do until we take control of the Senate and take control of the White House."

Blackburn said that as GOP lawmakers start looking at the next debt ceiling deadline in February, they must lay out specific goals.

"I hope that we make a priority of entitlement reform and tax reform and weigh those out, build support for it from people all across the country, Democrat, Republican, Independent, have them talking to their legislators," she said.

This was something the Republicans missed out on throughout the year, according to the Volunteer State lawmaker.

"I have said for months, we should have started in January, every week we should have repealed some program, some department, we should have put up … what it would save this year, what it would save next year," she said.

"Then when we got down to a battle over the budget, over the continuing resolution if we didn't have a budget, over the debt ceiling, we would be able to point to a number and say, we wouldn't be in this situation if the Senate passed our bills because we would have saved 'X' number of hundred billion dollars."

Blackburn believes House Speaker John Boehner, whose Republican leadership during the government shutdown was under fire, is safe in his job.

"He did a good job of standing with the members, of working with all sides, all points of view … and that he probably has come out of this stronger, not weaker," she said.

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