It should have been a moment of victory for Speaker John A. Boehner and fellow members of a House Republican leadership team still learning on the job as they forced through a record level of spending cuts. Instead, it felt a little like defeat.
Though the House voted convincingly to end the spending fight that had brought the government to the brink of a shutdown, Democrats had to ride to the rescue to provide the winning margin as dozens of Republicans turned thumbs down.
Fifty-nine Republicans — nearly a quarter of the new majority — rejected the measure personally negotiated by Mr. Boehner and endorsed by his top lieutenants, Representatives Eric Cantor of Virginia, the majority leader, and Kevin McCarthy of California, the party whip. Another lawmaker said he would have opposed the measure but missed the vote. Twenty-seven of the 59 who bucked the leadership were freshmen.
The outcome amounted to a warning shot to the leadership from its right flank that conservatives are serious when they say they will not support measures that do not meet their fiscal ideals, a position that is not going to make Mr. Boehner’s life any easier as he heads into new showdowns over raising the federal debt limit and deficit reduction. It could also have long-term implications for the speaker politically if he continues to face such internal division.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/us/politics/15boehner.html?partner=rss&emc=rss “I think my leadership needs to probably sit down and have a come-to-Jesus with themselves,” said Representative Allen B. West, a freshman Republican from Florida who derided the budget cuts as a “raindrop in an ocean.
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