Boehner: The president checked out last Labor Day
posted at 4:51 pm on April 18, 2012 by Tina Korbe
In a pre-recorded interview for CBS’ “This Morning,” House Speaker John Boehner called out the president for his incessant campaigning and confirmed that the chief occupant of the White House has lately made no effort whatsoever to work with Congress on any of the key issues that face the country.
Boehner particularly noted the peculiarity of the president’s pivot from an all-consuming focus last summer on arriving at a “Grand Bargain” on the debt and deficit to his present focus on a tax measure that would barely affect the deficit at all.
“I sat for months with the president. He wanted revenue,” said Boehner. “I said, ‘Mr. President, I’ll put revenue on the table that we can achieve out of fixing our tax code. But the only way I’ll do it is if you’re willing to have real, fundamental reform of our entitlement programs.’ And the fact is we have an agreement,” the Speaker said.
“And then two days later, the president decided he wanted $400 billion of more revenue, which was, in effect, a $400 billion tax increase.
“He lost his courage,” Boehner said.
He added that he was “not optimistic” about reaching a new agreement with the president. “The president checked out last Labor Day. All he’s done is campaign full time for the last six months. He’s not been engaged in the legislative process at all. There have been no efforts at trying to work with Democrats and Republicans to address this issue at all. And it’s — it’s shameful.”
In essence, Boehner is saying that the president is not doing his job. It’s not that he’s doing it poorly — it’s that he’s not doing it at all. Even liberals have noted that the president has backed away from hard fights. In her column this week, Ruth Marcus points out that the president — by focusing so much on his reelection and separating the Buffett Rule from broader tax reform proposals — is making Democrats’ job more difficult down the road, when they will want to call for comprehensive tax increases.
It’s worth noting that the lack of ideas from Democrats on major issues doesn’t just suggest that their electoral strategy is to demonize whatever Republicans present. It’s also to obscure whatever their true tax and entitlement reform plans would be — presumably because their ideas wouldn’t be particularly palatable to the American public.
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As I just posted HotairLib has their whole head up their six o clock.
hamradio on May 24, 2013 at 2:43 PM
Who wrote the speech? Or are you just praising the messenger?
mixplix on May 24, 2013 at 2:57 PM
Connect the dots: journolist meeting by invitation only at the White House on, what Tuesday?, “big”speech by Obama on Thursday, lame stream media fawning over speech on Friday. Who would have seen that coming, huh?
parke on May 24, 2013 at 2:58 PM
They need the “war on terror” in order to further erode our Constitutional freedoms and to deflect criticism from the administration’s and Federal government’s ongoing corruption.
They are just trying to massage it so that they don’t offend the Muslims, international Libtards and their own sensibilities anymore than necessary.
A few Muslim terrorists here and there are quite expendable to this Administration despite their sympathies for them. These drone attacks also do much deflect any potential criticism that the Administration is weak in dealing with such matters.
Dr. ZhivBlago on May 24, 2013 at 2:59 PM
MSNBC is nothing but a left wing propaganda machine serving their master, Obama.
rplat on May 24, 2013 at 3:07 PM
I believe that he was officially nominated 10 days after he was sworn in. Wow! The WON really worked long hours that week and a half to earn that POS medal. During those ten days he ordered NO DRONE STRIKES to keep his peaceful record clean.
fred5678 on May 24, 2013 at 3:22 PM
Obama: Don’t worry about that Ben Ghazi guy. I killed Bin Laden, and Bush didn’t!
And Obummer still wants to close Gitmo? Good luck with that–not even Upchuck Schumer was willing to hold trials in New York!
Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:24 PM
They just changed the definition of terrorist. They used to be jihadis from the Middle East–now they’re Minutemen in Arizona and Tea Partiers in Ohio.
Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:29 PM
Erika, sometimes your writing shows signs of rivaling even the Master of Snark himself, Allahpundit. Good work!
KS Rex on May 24, 2013 at 3:45 PM
I love how crazy Al invoked the Nobel Peace Prize in praise of a speech that spoke about dropping bombs on people’s head. Maybe it was the “fewer” bombs than before that raised this to historic levels.
Do they even know or care that they are morons.
marnes on May 24, 2013 at 3:46 PM
His speech made less sense than Bluto’s Animal House Speech and was far less entertaining. Nothing less than base rallying time. Never thought I would say this, but Code Pink was the best part.
DDay on May 24, 2013 at 4:01 PM
Sperling posted this at the Examiner on May 23 about this “historic speech of Obysmal’s:
You see, we are just not working hard enough to “work with the Muslim American community” who are a “fundamental part of the American family.” Watch out, too, because Obysmal is again trying to limit the impact of the Internet.
onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:22 PM
That Chris Hayes is a bit of a twink, isn’t he?
onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:25 PM
Obama apparently gave two speeches yesterday and I watched the other one.
myiq2xu on May 24, 2013 at 5:03 PM
Nah. I’d detest the little pissant s.o.b. if he was white…or Asian…or any one of the myriad of made-up racial divisions.
Solaratov on May 24, 2013 at 11:00 PM
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