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Douglas W. Elmendorf is an obscure figure beyond a narrow radius around Capitol Hill. As the director of the Congressional Budget Office, his nuts-and-bolts job is to serve as the official scorekeeper on the price of legislation and the referee on the budgetary and economic impacts of policy, from the Affordable Care Act to an increase in the minimum wage. So it is one of the stranger surprises of the midterm election fallout that the question of whether to reappoint him to his post has become a hot topic of debate — among Republicans. (Weisman, 12/1)

Back in 2012, the GOP presidential candidates all ran promising full repeal of the president’s health care law. It was a particularly tough stance for eventual nominee Mitt Romney, who was pilloried during the primaries because the health care plan he created as Massachusetts governor also had an individual mandate. This time, several GOP governors who might run will take heat for expanding Medicaid under Obamacare. The expansion option comes with the promise that Washington will cover the full cost the first few years and 90 percent of it thereafter. (Hohmann, 12/2)

Mr. Bush also offered some tough love to the incoming Republican majority in Congress that seemed aimed at heading off a showdown over the federal budget that could lead to a repeat of last year’s government shutdown. Quit trying to “make a point,” Mr. Bush said, and forge compromises to pass legislation. Stop seeking to repeal the Affordable Care Act, he suggested, and offer alternative health-care proposals. “We don’t have to make a point any more as Republicans,” he said. “We have to actually show that we can, in an adult-like way, we can govern, lead.” (Reinhard, 12/1)