TPM’s Brian Beutler gives us details on how a politically trapped House Speaker John Boehner told House Republicans that he felt it was time that the payroll tax extension battle of December 11 was over:
In a conference call with House Republicans early Thursday evening, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) took no questions after making it clear to his members that the game was up and they would have to swallow the Democratic payroll tax extension.
Boehner laid out the agreement he forged to temporarily renew the payroll tax holiday — one his members will hate — and said the goal is to pass the new bill by unanimous consent on Friday morning. That means if even a single recalcitrant Republican objects to his plan, the chaos will drag on for several days.
At a press conference with reporters just after the call, Boehner admitted he has no assurances that the unanimous consent request will fly — but in a sign that he’s finally laying down the law with his unruly members, he vowed to force them to take an up-or-down vote on the issue next week if they cause any trouble.
If there is trouble it’ll be a huge story — and yet another bad image for Tea Party.
Republicans (who are in tune with talk show hosts) — if this doesn’t pass by unanimous consent tomorrow. It would also likely further diminish Boehner’s clout.
Too often partisans of the left and right call any kind of compromise “caving” since they don’t want to give in at all. True political differences means each side gives something up. And that’s how American politics was done for years.
But this was not compromise: this was caving, in a situation of the Tea Party Republican’s own making and choosing, with Boehner caught in the middle and unable to control his own members.
Tonight he tried.
Tomorrow we’ll see if he succeeded.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.