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Boehner Can’t Give Away the House Fast Enough

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  December 17th, 2012 at 07:53 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

What is worse than striking out?  Grounding into a double play.

Not only is Boehner prepared to raise taxes – both through capping deductions and increasing marginal rates – he is now prepared to preemptively surrender our last point of leverage in one fell swoop.  The media is now reporting that Boehner offered Obama a clean 1-year debt ceiling extension as part of the deal to raise taxes in return for fake spending cuts.

The debt ceiling fight presents us with an enormous opportunity to change the subject from revenue to spending cuts.  It also provides Republicans with a teachable opportunity t illustrate how absurdly Obama has squandered the entire $2.1 trillion debt increase in just 16 months.

But that would require articulation and communication, arduous tasks for Republicans.  Why go through the trouble of contrasting your views when you could just wash your hands of the issue and cave?

Boehner is acting like a desperate person on a sinking ship who is tossing everything overboard.

Taxes?  You got it.

Debt ceiling?  Take everything you want.

Amnesty?  Please take it off my hands.

What’s next?  Why doesn’t he offer cap and trade, an assault weapons ban, and a VAT?  And because the Democrats picked up a few seats in the House, maybe he should offer Pelosi a Christmas present of half the committee chairmanships?

This is a man who would pay more than the sticker price for a car.

When you couple this capricious behavior with his purge of conservatives from committees, you have to wonder if this is 1984 all over again – a situation where the opposition is nothing more than a part of the party in power.

Whether it’s incompetence or malevolence is not our concern.  Boehner must step down in place of someone who will offer us a choice, not a feeble echo.

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  • The_Gadfly

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: John Boehner should at least raise himself to the honor level of Newt Gingrich who resigned when Republicans lost seats.

  • merrie7137

    I disagree! I think he should give Obama everything he asks for. If he doesn’t the Republicans will get the blame. The last debt ceiling showdown may have decimated the Tea Party. You’d think the fact that we’re right back here 18 months later to raise it again would have proved them right, but apparently not. Giving Obama his way will catapult the economy back into recession. Then, who will he blame?

  • commonsenseobserver

    Perhaps.
    Though I don’t expect Boehner to propose a VAT, if he did, he probably wouldn’t include such a credit. An exemption on food and all seems more probable, as in other countries.

    But we can be sure that the fiercest opposition to a VAT, even with a credit and all, would come from the left.

  • carolina

    a Boehner tweet last night says this would require MORE spending cuts and reforms from BO. I don’t trust the lamestream media reports.

  • http://twostepstotheright.blogspot.com/ D.T. Dickinson

    Deliberating about how large the pebble should be to fill the gaping hole in the dam only gives credence to the idea that a pebble could actually fix it.

  • sisyphusx

    Boehner is at his moment of highest leverage, 23 months from the next election, and he’s trying to burn down the nation hand in hand with the worst president in American history. I no more trust Boehner tweets than I trust Obama, this will be the second lame duck session in a row where he has ignored the mandate of his caucus in order to diminish and beggar America. If he returns as Speaker to the 113th Congress, he should show up for work wearing a presidential leash and a bag of golf clubs.

  • checkmate2012

    I’m going to start calling Boehner Rover, as he rolls over and begs the prez for a deal before the negotiations even started. This is insanity and I hope the House Reps. rebel by voting him out on Jan. 3rd. Ceding the debt limit is agregious. And let all tax rates go up or none of them…let the Senate and the prez decide and own it.
    It seems obvious the Obama wants to go over the cliff, regardless of what concessions Rover tries to sweeten the deal with, so he should quit trying and walk away. No deal. Let Obama own the cliff and it’s reprecussions and walk away with what little face he has left.

  • commonsenseobserver

    Mr Boehner, Mr Cantor, Mr Ryan, just let it go and let it burn.

  • carolina

    Roll Call says BO has moved a little:

    “President Barack Obama made a budget counteroffer to Speaker John
    Boehner on Monday that included raising the top rates on income above
    $400,000, $400 billion in health care cuts and $200 billion in
    discretionary cuts.”

    Much more info & details here:

    http://tinyurl.com/cytz8q5

  • checkmate2012

    Wow, so we’re now up to 60 days of spending cuts…whoppie, not. Breitbart.com has it too and said O agrees for dollar for dollar spending cuts to revenue. And this saves how? We should rename it fiscal insanity.

  • greyeagle

    Boehner is a weakling and no leader. He and Cantor have been on the outs about some of this. Cantor would be a much stronger leader. If enough Republicans stiffen their spine, they can kick Boehner to the curb and install someone else.

  • giatny

    I don’t see how any Republican could vote for this obscenity – tax increases,
    lifting the debt ceiling and taking blame for any proposed cuts in entitlements!!!!
    All Boehner had to do was to pass the Senate bill making the Bush tax cuts
    permanent for 98%, propose substitute cuts for the sequester and then refuse
    to give Obama another dime. Once the 98% are taken care of, the leverage
    would return to the Republicans. Boehner is actually giving up the $600 billion
    in tax cuts won when the debt ceiling was raised the first time. Obama has
    no intention of cutting anything. The only way to salvage this disaster is to throw
    Boehner out and refuse ANY new spending. 51% of the vote is not a mandate.

  • tommyfrisco

    Yes, Boehner just got re-elected which wasn’t much of a feat since he ran unopposed by a Democrat. It appears that the opposing party wants him to remain as Speaker, perhaps even more so than the GOP conservative base which is why the MSM seems to be so pleasant to John Boehner.
    The question I have is, which party is John Boehner representing? He seems to be helping the Dems more than the Repubs.

  • checkmate2012

    Like Daniel stated, it’s hard to tell who’s on first. Let’s blame the voters of his district for re-electing him for 22 years. Ohio, you can do better.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    Actually, getting Obama off the $250K dime is progress.

    The real trick as Horowitz put it above was/is NOT to give in on the debt ceiling, unless there is significant spending cuts in it.
    Then, after the tax cliff deal is done, focus on the SPENDING.
    The problem is the spending the solution is to cut it.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    I doubt that there is a lot of space between the leaders on this. The real issue is simply that Obama won and our party lacks articulate enough leaders to defy both a Democrat Senate and a president *and* a media complicit in painting Republicans as devils. Conservatives dont help by bashing our own weak leaders… its like kicking a dog who cant hunt.

  • commonsenseobserver

    I sure hope Boehner doesn’t listen to idiots like: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-17/why-almost-everyone-is-lying-about-tax-reform.html

  • The_Gadfly

    You might be be right by the current edition of Webster’s, unfortunately the LSM are writing the next version, where semi-automatics WILL BE assault weapons.