Roll Call
Boehner to caucus: I’m not interested in any fiscal cliff bill unless majority of you would support it
On the packed GOP members-only call, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., asked Boehner, R-Ohio, whether he would allow Democrats to carry a bill if the Senate passed a bill to which most House Republicans would object.
“I’m not interested in that,” Boehner remarked, according to a source on the call.
The speaker’s intention to stay steadfast means a rocky final stretch before Congress plummets off the fiscal cliff. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada tried to put pressure right back on Boehner by asking him to take up the bill the Senate passed earlier this year that extends the 2001 and 2003 tax rates on the first $250,000 of American’s annual income.
Blowback
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Boehner to caucus: I’m not interested in any fiscal cliff bill unless majority of GOP would support it
Okay, Quisling.
Here’s the bill – cut taxes for the bottom 3 income brackets. Leave the top 2 alone.
Sign bill.
Send to Senate.
Announce that the House has passed a tax cut bill and the ball is in the Democrats’ court. If they refuse it, then they alone are guilty of allowing higher taxes to all Americans.
Go home.
Profit.
Rixon on December 28, 2012 at 8:56 AM
Now is actually the time to stand on principle and demand steep cuts in spending.
Democrats want the taxes to rise, they will rise, people voted for it.
Double down on spending cuts, you will at least look principled and this hooey about being blamed is just that.
Everyone knows its the dems pushing taxes up.
Lonetown on December 28, 2012 at 9:05 AM
That doesn’t look like compromise, to me.
OldEnglish on December 28, 2012 at 9:10 AM
OMG, I think I just got a concussion. See you guys in a couple weeks.
forest on December 28, 2012 at 9:16 AM
Have the entire GOP membership vote “present” and let the leftists own their own manure pile. They created it, after all.
TKindred on December 28, 2012 at 9:22 AM
^^THIS. Meaningful spending cuts are harder to achieve than lowering marginal tax rates. At least historically that has been true. If I have to choose I would much rather take the cuts and worry about the tax rates later. In the meantime, the leftists can own the inevitable results of that.
NoLeftTurn on December 28, 2012 at 9:42 AM
A lot of people have been suggesting something similar here, but I haven’t heard anyone in the House remotely hinting at anything like that. Is it against procedure. Not 3D chess enough? Something only pundits and congressional clerks understand?
Dongemaharu on December 28, 2012 at 9:44 AM
Spending Originates in the House. Not the Oval Office. The President does not get to say how much money he gets to spend, and the congress is supposed to have a say on where it goes.
Let the Republicans in the House put forth their plan, like they have done, and let the President beg for more, and say exactly what he intends to do with it, with a Budget Document.
Demand A Budget for 2012-13 NOW.
Fleuries on December 28, 2012 at 9:48 AM
It’s not. It’s being called “compromise” to give the Boehnerites the capability to dismiss their critics on the right as extremist wingnuts.
As far as I know there’s no procedural reason it can’t be done; Boehner just doesn’t seem to want to do it.
Doomberg on December 28, 2012 at 9:56 AM
You’re right – but they should have started this LAST YEAR.
One good place to start would have been for Boehner to actually KEEP his February, 2010 CPAC speech promise to “cut $100 Billion from this year’s budget and we won’t stop there!” At that point in time – he was riding high on a Tea Party wave that caused HISTORIC GOP wins in Congress. He completely squandered his momentum.
Then he followed that up by bending like a reed on the debt ceiling. And now we are here – at a time when GOP enthusiasm is at it’s very least – talking again about being “tough”.
WTF? The time NEVER gets better by waiting. A reasonable plan executed violently today beats a perfect plan executed six months from now hands down.
Everyone now knows that the GOP is absolutely terrified of shutting down the government. How can you blame the Dims for smelling the blood in the water? Of course – they’re going to ask for the moon and stars and EXPECT to get it.
Just shut the damn government down and deal with the fallout – it won’t be any better if you wait.
GOP tactics – well they are borrowed right from the pages of Joseph E. Johnston … just keep retreating and hope that eventually you land on high ground you can defend. Didn’t work for Johnston – won’t work for Boehner either.
So Boehner may not realize this – but this is his last “hurrah” – he can go down fighting or he can go down crying.
I think we all know what route he’ll choose.
HondaV65 on December 28, 2012 at 10:09 AM
It’s called common sense, conservatism and it’s also defeating your opponents with a dose of their own medicine. Since the Dems claim to want to cut taxes, then just present them with a simple bill that does just that. If they balk, then they are the ones that are the recalcitrants.
What the Dems want to do is two-fold;
1) to destroy the party and to create a lie that it was conservative fiscal policy that destroyed the economy. Since Boehner has agreed to wanting to raise taxes – even on just the so-called rich – it is a de facto admission that the core principles of conservatism don’t work.
2) when taxes do skyrocket come 1/1/13, SCOAMF gets to ride in on a white horse, announce that he and his party are for low taxes for the middle class and look like the hero if Republicans refuse to go along with him.
This was Boehner’s major foul-up of immediately caving and agreeing to raise taxes instead of digging in and fighting as a conservative. He isn’t one, so there’s that.
Rixon on December 28, 2012 at 10:19 AM
Again, you do not compromise your principles in this situation, especially when your principles are a big part of the solution to our problems. The left always drags us ever leftward; they never move in the opposite direction. To them, compromise means that the GOP surrenders. Perhaps not all the way, but a little at a time. It’s never the other way. Look at how Maria Bartiromo pimp-slapped Ben Cardin the other day when he kept whining about compromise, and when she asked him if he was going to cut spending on certain things, he flat out said “no.”
Name any issue, from national security to 2nd Amendment to abortion to border control. If we had actual leadership that BELIEVED in conservatism, then a lot of this could have been avoided. Perhaps Bush 41 might even have been re-elected in ’92. Who knows? The GOP is basically progressivism-light. That’s one big reason why the base has stayed home for the past 2 elections.
Our so-called leaders and even many of us allow the left to frame the debate. This is straight out of Alinsky and Lakoff (rhymes with…). If you surrender to that, then you can’t win. The free market and limited government succeeds wherever and whenever it’s tried. It creates more wealth and more opportunity for more people than any other system. We need leaders who can espouse this clearly, passionately and as often as possible. We do not have that.
Rixon on December 28, 2012 at 10:28 AM
No, Boehners major foul up was agreeing to a debt limit increase in return for a “super committee” that everyone knew would do nothing, and the set up of a “fiscal cliff” scenario so terrible and unimaginable that no politician would be able to let it happen if spending wasn’t cut.
So we gave Obama a debt ceiling increase for nothing, cut a grand total of $1 billion dollars (a rounding error in DC), and set up a scenario where Obama gets what he wants (tax increases and defense cuts) and gets to blame republicans for it, AND as a bonus puts him in a position to go back and be a tax CUTTER while boehner is out there support tax INCREASES on “the rich.”
Basically, Boehner was played / is playing us for fools. The “fiscal cliff” was a well executed plan by Obama to get EXACTLY what he wants in exchange for NOTHING.
Timin203 on December 28, 2012 at 11:01 AM
This scenario is unfolding exactly how Obama wanted, Boehner is playing his part so well I can’t help but think that he knows what is going on, is fine with it, and is just trying to put up a fake struggle to appease those right wing nut jobs that make up his base (us & some of the newer congressmen).
I mean, honestly, I can’t imagine a scenario in which Boehner could have done any more to help Obama. Maybe if he’d gone out and said, “Bush tax cuts for the rich are “responsible for the mess we’re in,” so I agree with president obama that we need to reverse those right now.” which is, well, sort of what he said when he conceded we needed to get “1.4 trillion” in “additional revenue” by raising taxes “on the wealthiest americans.”
He is speaking Obamas newspeak and accepting Obamas premises. He could have said, “Even if we were to receive 140 Billion a year (for 10 years) to the treasury by raising taxes on the productive class (which is a BIG assumption, assuming human behavior remains static with a changing tax code), that is but a drop in the bucket of $1 Trillion plus deficits that Obama insists on funding yearly. Our best hope at this point is to grow the economy and increase the number of people working, while capping federal spending at our real dollar levels. To grow the economy, we need to begin the process of revamping our tax code to leave less money in the private sector, which will allow it to grow. The best way we know to keep money in the private sector is to cut tax rates on everyone.”
Then walk away and ask Obama to present a plan that does just that. If no plan is produced, produce a plan last minute that cuts taxes and spending. And tell Obama up front that there will be no more debt limit increases and that we will not continue to spend at WW2 emergency spending levels as a matter of course, nor are the kinds of defecits necessary to spend at those levels acceptable.
Timin203 on December 28, 2012 at 11:11 AM
more money*
Timin203 on December 28, 2012 at 11:12 AM
That is exactly what is needed. Give the Libs what they want… and let em hang by it. In fact, its much better to do that instead of letting it go over the cliff in which then all blame is on the Republicans and then we have 08 all over again. I wonder what they can get passed this time … full gun grab, illegals all become legal citz?
watertown on December 28, 2012 at 11:23 AM
Does Boehner really mean it this time?
I still think the House should pass a bill that leaves current tax rates intact for those earning a million or more and cuts the rates a percentage point or two for the middle class. Let Obamuh and Reidiculous chew on that, spit out then have to defend themselves to the American taxpayer.
stukinIL4now on December 28, 2012 at 11:39 AM