Boehner’s Plan B Fails, Exposes His Weakness & House GOP Chaos
John Boehner’s “Plan B” political stunt has failed, as he could not even get his House Republicans to support the bill. This is a pretty stunning political failure by a guy who is cementing his legacy as one of the weakest Speakers ever. Why Boehner would even attempt this political stunt (and it is a stunt since the bill was never going to pass the Senate or get signed by Obama) when he wasn’t 100% sure he could even get his own party to support it is a head-scratcher.
It raises questions about whether Eric Cantor and/or other high-ranking House Republicans are even sincerely working with Boehner at this point, or if they are part of the sabotaging of Boehner’s power that is clearly going on now. Again, it just makes no sense that Boehner would create this plan and essentially spend days guaranteeing it will pass, only to have it not even voted on because he realized he didn’t have the votes… all on the day of the vote.
All that speculation aside, the Tea Party is now in firm control of the House Republicans. If there was any doubt about that before, it’s pretty clear now. This raises some serious questions about how a deal can even be worked out now. Boehner clearly has no power, and negotiating with him is pointless since even if he agrees to a deal, he is unlikely to be able to whip his members into voting for it.
That aside, Boehner is now in an even weaker position than he was before this whole Plan B debacle. Obama holds all the cards in terms of negotiating with Boehner, but the bigger question now is who speaks for the House Republicans? Is it Eric Cantor? He has been angling for Boehner’s seat for years, and is more in touch with the House Republicans anyway, but he also guaranteed the Plan B bill would pass, so even his word has no value anymore (unless that was all a strategy to make Boehner look weak).
Boehner’s Speakership is now in pretty shaky standing, and how long he is able to hold on to that title remains to be seen. The Speakership vote will be on January 3rd and who knows who will be left standing then. Obama is really the only person now who can save Boehner. The House Republicans and Cantor clearly smell blood in the water over his Speakership, and only a worked out deal with Obama can salvage Boehner’s reputation (but even that may not save his Speakership). Boehner may now have to move to the left and agree to a bill with Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi that is based on securing more House Democrats than Republicans (with Boehner securing the 30-40 moderate House Republicans he actually can control) and Nancy Pelosi bringing along her members. That would surely cost him his Speakership but would at least allow him to get something done and repair his reputation as a political hack who can’t get anything done. Of course, in a deal like this that Democrats carry, Obama is likely to remove Social Security cuts, and possibly go back to the $250,000 tax increase level, not the $400,000 he last offered Boehner. In this type of deal, they’d only have to add in what the 30-40 moderate House Republicans ask to be in the deal. The Tea Party would be cut out.
If a deal like that isn’t reached, it looks like we’re headed over the Fiscal Cliff. Obama has already offered up $1 trillion in spending cuts and put Social Security on the table, and Boehner said no. There is no way he is going to offer more than that now that Boehner has exposed himself as not even having support among his own party for his own bill. Obama can simply let the Bush tax cuts expire, then introduce his own middle class tax cuts bill and force Republicans to vote for that (since voting against it would be a violation of their tax pledges). Markets will probably fall in the interim, and that won’t solve Obama’s looming debt ceiling clash with Republicans, but he has no other choice because he has nobody on the Republican side now to negotiate with in good faith. It appears as if House Republicans would rather oppose Obama than lock in the $1 trillion in spending cuts he has offered if they come attached with a tax increase on the wealthy.
Talk about dysfunction. The House Republicans have no leader, no strategy, and no direction. The moves they are making make no sense. They passed up $1 trillion in cuts, including Social Security cuts, for what? A Plan B that they also didn’t approve of? This isn’t how a deal gets done. This is simply one side (the side that lost the last election) saying give me everything I want or go screw yourself. It’s pretty amazing and hard to find any sort of precedence to this in recent U.S. politics prior to the Obama era.
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The optics for all this are horrible for Boehner and the GOTP. Its one thing to lose an election as badly as they did. Its quite another to take away from that election the lesson that they need to become even *MORE* extreme in their positions.
They literally all look like a bunch of wild apes crashing and thrashing about their cages throwing excrement against the walls….a hissy fit of epic proportions.
And in full view of the public on top of it. Unbelievable. Disturbing. Sad. But not really a shock.
Oh well. The good news is there will be fewer GOTP members in Congress come the new year. Will that make a difference? Unknown. We’ll see.
Obama put $1 trillion dollars in spending cuts??? Really??? Really??? Funny all that has been said is that he wanted to let the tax rates raise on those who make more than $250,000/year. Is that a salaried employee? Is that how much a business owner makes from his business before he takes out his costs? And if those who make above this rate and say it is only fair for them to pay more then why don’t they write a check for what they feel they should be paying and give it to the government? What’s stopping them from giving the govt more of the money that they feel they should be paying in taxes? If you feel you aren’t paying enough then by all means give more; I’m sure they’ll find a way to blow it on something needless. For any plan to work there has to be a balance of revenue raised with cahnges in spending habits. The president has not offered any changes in his spending habits.
But I also feel that the defnse department must look at itself and see where it can cut overhead, or at least realocate funds better. That has to include the congress going along with it. If the people in the DOD say they don’t want/need a new weapon system or vehicle made, then Congress can’t go in and override them for the sake of saving face in their home district.
This president put a commission together that adressed many of these issues over a year ago, but when the time came for him to get behind it and give his weight to it, he didn’t. So we are where wer are due to everyone not having the guts to stand up tot he extremese. Yes, John Boehner may not be the Speaker come January, but I challenge this president that if he couldn’t come up with a deal with John Boehner, how does he think he’ll get one with Eric Cantor or some other Speaker.
Politics is the art of making a deal where everyone wins and everyone loses. So far only the Republicans are feeling the losses and people like this author and others are just looking to heap dirt on their graves. I applaud such brave men who kick someone when they are down. Bravo, Ashish. Bravo.
We had an election. President Obama put forth his economic plan in the debates. Mitt Romney put forth his plan. It was a clear choice.
President Obama won the election. Not only that…..the GOTP lost seats in the Senate and House. And they also lost the popular vote in the House…although because of their gerrymandered districts, they retained a majority…barely.
The matter of direction has been settled by a vote of the American People. If the GOTP will not submit to those elections…..that’s fine. We’re have to figure out a way to govern without them.
This is all just posturing by the republicans. They want to go over the fiscal cliff. Here’s why:
Spending Cuts will go into effect immediately. They can go back and increase the pentagon budget, but they will get the spending cuts right away that they cannot get through conventional legislative means.
The increase in taxes should be a horror of all horrors for them, except for one thing; taxes are already at an all time low. You almost literally cannot cut taxes any more. The only way you can run as a tax cutter go forward is to let everything go back to zero so you can pass a tax cut. Don’t tell me that first or second term tp congressmen aren’t salivating at the prospect of having their names on a massive tax cut.
It’s why they’re more than willing to hang beohner out to dry, he’s not really one of them. While they may be backing the national party into a corner of increasing irrelevance, they themselves are very secure in their seats thanks to 2010 gerrymandering efforts. They are there to consolidate their own power at the expense of more moderate Rs.
When the hell did John Boehner become the moderate?
Yay! Ash is back!
This isn’t about Tea Party control. If so, why did Boehner and the Republican leadership strip 4 key Tea Partiers from key committees? I think the first theory is better; it’s a coup within the GOP leadership, lead by Cantor, against Boehner.
It was a warning to the rest of the GOTP to tow the line and vote with Boehner if it came down to him trying to pass his “Plan B” in the House.
Doh!!!! Didn’t work out very well. Yet another horrible miscalculation by the worst speaker of the house in modern memory.
And I don’t think its a coup by Cantor either. He’s smart enough to know that he can’t control the GOTP. Nobody can. You can’t negotiate with tax and spending nihilists. And what is left of what we are now calling “establishment” republicans in the House are scared to death of the multiple primary challengers they’ll get on their right flanks if they bolt and try to get something done.
This is all why Boehner has stated its up to President Obama and Majority Leader Reid over in the Senate.
Because he’s done. Its over for him. And he knows it.
Boehner has always been a weak negotiator with Obama. That was evident last year on the resolution extensions. Since the Tea Party are responsible for this moron to be Speaker then it is up to the Tea Party to get him out and nominate a real conservative that is not afraid to negotiate with the Communists in power. Actually, since the Speakership does not have to be within the House of Reps why not Alan West for that position?