Politico: Boehner Gave House Republicans What They Wanted
As the United States now is poised on the brink of what experts and non-talk-show-political-culture analysts (including establishment Republicans) say is a financial catastrophe, when House Majority Leader John Boehner walked away from negotiations over the debt ceiling limit with President Barack Obama, according to The Politico he gave House Republicans what they wanted. It’s yet another indication of the sheer partisanship and grudge match of American politics — even if the risk is national and global financial upheaval. Here’s part of the piece:
This is the Speaker John Boehner that House Republicans wanted.
The Ohio Republican accused President Barack Obama of demanding hundreds of billions in tax increases as part of a deal to raise the nation’s debt limit — a revenue boost the nation’s top Republican said he simply couldn’t accept.
Just minutes after a press conference where Obama accused the speaker of failing to lead House Republicans, Boehner countered sharply by trying to place any blame for the setback directly on Obama.
“I do trust him as a negotiator, but you have to understand, every step of this process was difficult,” Boehner said on Friday night. “Dealing with the White House is like dealing with a bowl of Jell-O.”
Boehner said several times that he had “an agreement” with Obama, only to portray the president as reneging on the framework for that compromise.
“Let me just say the White House moved the goal posts,” Boehner declared. “There was an agreement on some additional revenues until yesterday when the president demanded $400 billion more which was going to be nothing more than a tax increase on the American people.” Boehner said he was “very disappointed in this call for higher revenue.”
It’s a revelation that left Obama finger-wagging and mad, but a move that will likely put the speaker in good favor in his rightward leaning conference. They don’t trust the president or his administration and are wary of any potential deal ultimately cut with Democrats.
Towards the ending:
Boehner likely will be damaged in the eyes of the public. His approval ratings — which aides say means precious little to the speaker — are in the gutter. Many conservatives see him as the problem with Washington — a two-decade fixture in D.C. who is close to lobbyists and doesn’t apologize for it. His government funding measure, the right says, was nothing more than a bill of goods sold to political neophytes to avoid a government shut down.
To the chattering class, Boehner is an unmovable conservative who can’t say yes. A man who publicly shudders at tax increases and is controlled by the conservative right of his party.
But in the Capitol, that’s what Boehner needs.
His 240-person House Republican Conference wants to see Boehner walk away. GOP lawmakers certainly don’t want an agreement with the president, unless it’s on their terms. They’re unconcerned if Democrats vote for their plan, because its a sign of weakness. They want the rock-ribbed conservative Boehner who will stare down default – and Obama – unflinchingly, and only narrowly avoid calamity with a conservative plan.
So this is what governance has come to: all power politics. All playing to the Tea Party base.
Read THIS for more thoughts on what is occuring.
24 Responses to “Politico: Boehner Gave House Republicans What They Wanted”
The way he breaks down crying all the time, I think Boehner is mentally ill.
The Republican/Tea/Confederate Party is willing to crash the US/World economy to defeat Obama. It’s tribal warfare not governing.
I agree with Ron on this one… this is nothing but straight up tribal warfare.
Ideology before country.
I am embarrassed to admit that I actually had a little faith in Boehner. I really thought he was better than this. I guess I was wrong.
Ron,
The problem is that the Democrats are lying now, have lied in the past, and will lie in the future. Any promise of future spending cut in exchange for tax increases today is a stupid deal for the Republicans.
The Democrats should propose nothing but budget cuts for the first two years of the deal to demonostrate that they will support budget cuts before they get any tax increases.
Also, everyone knows that if the DEmocrats regain control of the House in 2013, that Speaker Pelosi will renege on any long term deal.
One agency has already cut the US debt rating:
(emphasis mine)
Egan-Jones is a small rating firm trying to make a name for itself.
Here’s the frightfully conservative LA Times describing the action.
Both sides thought there was a deal.
The President asked for more revenue.
Then there wasn’t a deal
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-boehner-20110723,0,3014755.story
Obama was willing to negotiate with people using terrorist tactics. If he wasn’t ready to let democrat voters pay for the excesses of republicans, good on him.
Ron B. has it exactly right. The TP is calling the shots and the GOP (spineless, clueless, and souless) is their sycophant enabler. To hell with the USA, all power to the tribe.
According to Politico Obama wasn’t pushing as hard for those revenue increases as Boehner believed. If accurate it seems more tragedy composed of a comedy of errors.
No offense Jim but that’s what I would say too after the deal fell apart.
I didn’t really mean it is a common explanation when you push too far.
As I’ve said many times, the problem with all of this is that it’s happening in secret enabling us to believe whatever we want to believe as opposed to having actual proposals to read and try to understand.
So let us see. Boehner is negotiating the House demands and Obama is negotiating the administrations. Then the gang of 6 comes out with a plan that could possibly make it through the Senate. Obama and Boehner can make all the deals in the world if it doesnt pass the senate it goes nowhere. So then Obama starts trying to split the difference between the gang of six and house plan and Boehner decides to walk away, this sounds like a deal was getting a bit too close. He could have negotiated…but he chose to walk away and oddly spent a long time deciding to do it which tells me this is another TP refusal.
You can spin it as you like Steve but many GOP statements are on the record crediting Obama with really trying here AND we know that Boehner has come close a few times and Cantor and the TP burned the bridge. This makes it rather difficult to blame on Obama.
Where did I blame Obama. I think there’s plenty of blame to go around. If I were assigning blame, I’d start with Harry Reid who has basically done nothing productive since Day 1 and go down from there.
I would start with Cantor but Reid is high on my list.
“Here’s the frightfully conservative LA Times describing the action.
Both sides thought there was a deal.
The President asked for more revenue.
Then there wasn’t a deal”
The above is where you seem to leave this on Obama’s doorstep. I could be reading it wrong since the article itself did not do that but the above statement sure sounded like it to me.
Just because Obama asked for more doesn’t mean it is solely his fault. It does mean he (probably) left a doable deal on the table thinking he needed to get more after the G6 proposal came down.
But I’ll repeat what I keep saying…if our friends in DC would show us the proposals, we’d have a lot more insight.
How about we blame the gang of 6? It appears that Obama wanted more revenue because the gang of 6 signaled that Reps were willing to allow more tax increases or tax code adjustments…whatever you want to call it.
Did Obama move the goal posts?? Yes, No, Maybe it was the 6? I’ll accept the argument that Obama screwed up by asking for more, but do not accept Boehner walking out of talks. We simply do not have the time for posturing. He should have stood his ground and kept working.
There is no talking around the LA Times piece.
Fair point Shannon. I think Obama misread the Gang of 6 proposal. The fact that 4 Republican senators signed on (sort of…the numbers are really fuzzy when you look at them) wasn’t really an indication of how far the House would go; however, I suspect it did move how far the Democratic caucus was willing to go and weakened the President with his fellow Dems.
That led to the larger ask and the breakdown.
I understand the passing the Senate argument as a reason to try to raise revenue, but I don’t like it. Yes, it must pass both bodies, but once a deal it made between the leadership, it is their job to make that happen.
I’d like to know how that discussion went. Was it Obama saying, “hey, in need another 800″, or was it more like, “This thing won’t pass the Senate without another 800″….and is that really a true? Where does the Senate stand on it?
Yes, it would be nice if the Senate would actually vote for something as opposed to just voting against everything it sees.
The sad part is we’ll never know what happened so partisans will continue to blame whomever they choose to blame.
Obama was a total ass wanting extra spending (outrageous, in fact) at the last minute. (Spending is the problem, reducing and controlling its future growth the obvious solution, notably with entitlements. I’m appalled there are so many dunces and delusional or dishonest people still insisting it’s something else, instead.)
Note that both sides are posturing, though Obama may once more be not only out of touch with reality but inept and amateurish.
I still believe the debt limit will be increased — Congress can make that law the day they decide to increase it and the President will sign it, naturally, on a 24/7 availability basis. (Congress is so crappy I doubt they’ll also be 24/7 as they ought.)
I wish liberals would grow up and be honest that the Dems have been as bad as or worse than the Republicans (as even liberal observers have commented elsewhere already), with not only their stupid class warfare gimmickry, but their insanity about reforming entitlements, the core of any serious long-term budget scheme.
Steve in Chicago wrote:
So many on this site apparently have forgotten (or did they never realize?) that among the numerous misdeeds of the Dems that led the public to repudiate them in November 2010 was an act of omission, rather than commission — they never made a budget!
Steve’s “secrecy” concern (do we know the details of any deal as of late?) reminds me of the original modern idealistic liberals whom Wilson personified with this Point (#1) about international relations:
“Open covenants [...] openly arrived at.”
Definitely, we need “sunshine” (transparency) with Washington, too!
I never expect much from Reid or Pelosi. I basically just consider them a total waste of space and tax payer dollars. We should be happy they are not involved because all they will do is make things ten times worse.
Look how badly they screwed up health care reform…with a stacked deck no less.
No, we should be happy they are not seriously involved.
Shannon:
It’s not health care reform alone, but everything — hence the public reaction and November-2010 response.