John Boehner launches campaign for Speaker

[ProSense]

John Boehner launches campaign for Speaker

by Jed Lewison

Earlier today in Cleveland, House Republican Leader John Boehner delivered a speech framing the central themes of the GOP's campaign to retake control of Congress and deliver him the Speaker's gavel. In the speech, Boehner presented five different priorities, each of them structured as a demand on President Obama. In order of delivery, Boehner identified his priorities as:

1. Extend Bush tax cuts for wealthy.
   
   
2. Pledge to veto EFCA or energy reform legislation passed by Congress after the November election but before the new Congress.
   
   
3. Tell Democrats to support the GOP's effort to repeal a provision of the health care law that Boehner claims would require businesses to itemize all expenditures over $600. (Note that Republicans actually blocked a vote to repeal the mandate in House and the small jobs bill in the Senate, currently being blocked by the GOP, is also a vehicle for repeal.)
   
   
4. Submit a massive spending reduction package to Congress.
   
   
5. Fire his entire economic team.

<...>

As for Ryan's plan, Boehner is endorsing a proposal that would:

1. Eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program and replace them with vouchers to defray the cost of private health insurance.
   
   
2. Pay for partially privatizing Social Security by cutting benefits to 1950 levels when half of elderly Americans lived below the poverty line.
   
   
3. Cut taxes in half for the wealthiest 1% of Americans, including an average cut of $502,000 per year for families earning more than $1 million and $1.7 million per year for the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans. These tax cuts would be on top of the Bush cuts, if made permanent.
   
   
4. Raise taxes on families earning between $25,000 and $200,000 by an average of $900 per year (relative to a continuation of current tax rates).

<...>

[livetohike]

1. Oh these proposals will go over well

:sarcasm: Also, is he so secure in his own race for Congressman in November, that he can afford to look ahead?

[flamingdem]

2. Dang! He looked less orange on the tube today

did they give him a pill?

[Submariner]

4. Naw...he's just faded.....the Boner is due for a re-spray

[KansDem]

3. Won't this move cut into his time on the links?

Midterms 2010: Democrats go after Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) for his 100 golf trips