The incredible shrinking Speaker, cont’d

[ProSense]

The incredible shrinking Speaker, cont’d

By Steve Benen

As recently as Friday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was on the same page as President Obama, at least far as debt-reduction targets go. Both wanted a plan with $4 trillion in savings; both eyed a “grand bargain” that would include new revenue; and both believed they could convince enough members of their respective parties to get on board once the deal was done.

By at least one account, the Speaker was “enthusiastically” endorsing the notion of a grand bargain and told his Republican colleagues that this is why he wanted to be Speaker in the first place.

Boehner, humiliated, reversed course on Saturday night, after learning that his own caucus refused to follow his lead. How bad is it? http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58662.html">This bad.

“It’s crazy to think the speaker was considering a trillion (dollars) in tax increases. After all, we’re the anti-tax party,” said one veteran Republican lawmaker close to leadership. “Cantor brought him, the economy and our party back from the abyss. Cantor is strengthened, clearly. And it’s another example of the speaker almost slipping beyond the will of the GOP conference.”

Note, that’s not a quote from a Democrat trying to drive a wedge between the House Speaker and his caucus; that’s a quote from a long-time Republican member of Congress who’s “close” to the GOP leadership.

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[Turbineguy]

1. The Inquisition

torturing Priests.

[gateley]

2. Cantor

:scared: :puke:

Boehner is of the Old School in many ways, and on is own may be more amenable to real compromises, but these young whipper-snappers are clueless and non-caring about the real problems and needs of the American people.

I still despise Boehner, but Canter is more dangerous, I think.

[no_hypocrisy]

5. + 1

Apparently Cantor thinks HE'S Speaker of The House.

[gateley]

14. And that's what he's gunning for. Didn't think it could be worse than

Boehner, but Cantor in that Seat would undoubtedly be a crisis for our country.

[CakeGrrl]

3. When the lunatics run the asylum.

The teabaggers are going to force the Congressional Republicans to 'default' on sanity and reason.

And if they can't work with the WH by August 2, the WH will have every reason to deploy a contingency plan, which I'm pretty sure they've considered.

[AlinPA]

8. There is no way that the GOP house will vote to increase the debt limit. They want the default.

[Doctor_J]

4. The teabaggers are probably pissed about the golf summit

They also know that there is no need to compromise with the prez - he'll cave sooner rather than later

[ProSense]

10. Boehner

is the man!!!!

I still wonder what would have happened to unemployment benefits in a Republican Congress?

Yeah, expanding the Bush tax cuts sucked, but imagine the other parts of the deal that would never have been enacted: unemployment benefits, additional Medicaid funding, EITC, etc.

Even if one imagined a scenario in which Republicans extended unemployment with no lapse in benefits and for a year (fat chance), does anyone really believe that the other critical funding and tax credits would have had a chance of passing?

There was an article recently about the Medicaid funding from the deal expiring (it was for six months). The President gets no credit for at least securing the additional appropriations, but he will get criticized for the expiration. Where's Congress? Where are the Congressional leaders who wanted to leave these benefits to the GOP?

[Doctor_J]

11. Actually if the president had drawn a line in the sand ANYWHERE along the line,

He wouldn't have to deal with these threats over and over and over and over again.

[ProSense]

12. Yeah,

there is always the negotiation to end all negotiations. There will never be a need to negotiate unemployment benefits ever again. The GOP will give up there hostage taking if they lose this round.

Absurd.

[Doctor_J]

15. So giving in on every negotiation will make it stop?

More like once you get used to surrendering, it becomes easy to do it on every issue. Which is what this president has done.

[toddwv]

6. I'm sure people will knock Obama for praising Boehner.

But praising him like that in public concerning the debt talks is worst than slapping him around.

To his right-wing base, it looks like Boehner is willing to capitulate.
To the middle and the left, it will make Boehner look contrite and incalcitrant.

Boehner will come out of this in a losing position no matter what he does which weakens his position greatly. Watch as he desperately attempts to slough off these glowing remarks by Obama by digging his trench even deeper.

[AlinPA]

7. Boehner controls the debt situation and can call for vote to stop any debt ceiling increase at any

time. For doing that, he will be a God in the GOP.

[DocMac]

9. The Whitehouse should be looking hard at the 14th Amendment.

This is not going to end well.

[bornskeptic]

16. They won't use the 14th Amendment, but they won't need to.

Mark Zandi, whom I trust as much as anyone on these things, said today that Geithner has enough money on hand to avoid default. I was fairly certain that was true anyway, but the Administration doesn't want to say anything to downplay the urgency of raising the debt ceiling.If there is no immediate default, incoming tax revenues will be more than adequate to service the debt. Of course there would have to be huge cuts somewhere. Would it be Social Security, Medicare, or the troops that didn't get funded, or two of the above? In any case I'm sure the GOP would be willing to ttake full credit.

[DocMac]

17. I think the gop is willing to default.

I don't have my head wrapped around what the result will be, but I don't want the bank to block me from my funds. I hate to sound paranoid but being a fool would be worse.

[gkhouston]

13. It would be hard for him to get much smaller.

Half the time, it feels like Pelosi's still the Speaker.