“treated as kids who are to be seen and not heard. They decided they needed to be heard”

Then threw a tantrum, reinforcing their need to be treated as children.

Where are their alternate ideas? I don’t mean one-minute snippets on talk shows, legislative hi-jinx or leaks/discussions with writers. The plan that this caucus of conservatives is standing behind, replete with press conferences and written articulation?

You want to know why we are fallaciously being portrayed as the party of no? Look in the mirror. This is not a party of “ideas”. It’s a mob with factions who occasionally band together to yell at the sun for shining too brightly.

I just watched Boehner deliver the most moronic news conference. The bottom line that he said was “we’re dealing with the perception of some members that they would be accused of voting for a tax hike”, clearly focusing the blame on House Conservatives. He even brought up the lifeguard analogy.

What didn’t he say?

1. All Democrats in the House were planning to vote against Plan B, and the Senate promised to let the bill die. The President even promised to veto the bill. What was the purpose in voting for a bill that was guaranteed to go nowhere? So, the Democrats and the President have now vowed to increase taxes on virtually all Americans, and all Americans will feel it in their first paycheck of the new year.

2. The President once talked about the scenario of 10 dollars in spending cuts for every dollar in tax increases, and now he’s offering a fake 85 cents for every dollar in tax increases. The president’s plan bankrupts America. He refuses to take his Presidency serious.

3. Boehner was asked about allowing a vote on the President’s plan. He should have said that the President’s budget was brought up to a vote this past summer, and it got zero votes. The President is so out of touch that he can’t even get votes from his own party.

4. The President wants everyone to pay more taxes, because that’s what’s needed for him to further his reckless spending. What the President doesn’t seem to realize is that by raising taxes on everyone (he thinks that everyone is rich), there will be less money coming into the government in taxes.

I’m not so optimistic that this will all come back to haunt Democrats by 2014. While the electoral turf favors Republicans in 2014, it will all depend on how things progress over the next two years. Democrats believe (and polling suggests) that the public supports them on taxes. I don’t personally think many Democrats feel spending is a problem. There will come a day when that is proven otherwise, but 2014 may not be that time.

Course, let’s not forget that the healthcare law will be really getting into gear by the time 2014′s election comes around.

he lost. He won’t be in the house next year.

No, actually, that’s not true. He wants to raise the top bracket (not “all of the tax rates”) back to the Clinton levels…and we don’t. And we want big cuts to the government…and they don’t. The two don’t mesh. Neither side is going to win 100% of what they want, so [gasp], someone’s going to have to compromise … preferably BOTH someones.

You are right about one thing – Boehner doesn’t know how to play the game. We have to mix politics and policy.

If conservatives wanted Plan B to fail, where is their plan for success? Why weren’t they present at the caucus meeting where they opted not to put the plan up for a vote.

Boehner messed up with the purge and general treatment of conservatives, but now that conservatives have what they want, where is their plan?

Or is embarrassing Boehner all they were after?

I think they are pining for a trip off the fiscal cliff. They have passed budget after budget, and plan after plan with no result. They are also going to be voting “no” on raising the debt ceiling. They took too much heat for voting “yes” the last time.

There were a lot of bad hands played yesterday. Boehner’s wasn’t the only one. The only one left sitting with aces is Obama. Republican factions are just left arguing over whether their pair of black jacks or red jacks is the higher hand.

Great passion / wrong analysis:

‘Pubs will get blamed for whatever happens by Obum and the willing media. If Plan B passed, then the Dems get to hang ‘raising taxes’ on the Pubs forever.

It is my belief that at some point you have to quit trying to elicit a response that you really cannot control, and simply stand on principle (which you can).

True, but at least if plan B passed the house republicans could argue that they made a good faith effort to avert what is about to happen.

Now they can’t even do that. Obama gets everything. He’s on the precipice of getting the full rollback of the Bush-era tax cuts coupled with deep defense cuts. And after all that, he gets to blame conservatives using a media that is all too happy to deliver that message.

Lack of political savvy on the right has provided a scenario that even liberals in their wildest dreams never thought possible.

Glad I watched that, and thanks for posting, but I did not think Huelskamp did much of a job on either the tax issue or the gun issue.

Sharkey, no disrespect intended, but you are wrong on so many levels. First, the American people are NOT smarter than the politicians give them credit for. The average voter is disconnected, relying only on what they hear from MSM (LSM), which is always going to be heavily slanted in the liberals’ favor. Pass Plan B, and the story is that raising taxes was always the right thing to do in the first place, and it’s just that the Repubs won’t raise them enough and that’s why this economy still stinks. WhiteOut has it right.

Now is not the time for blame.

I was convinced from the beginning that we were well and truly buggered no matter how this came out. Either we were going to concede everything to the Democrats, or we were going to come up with some half-assed compromise that involved raising taxes now for the promise of mythical spending cuts later (like every previous one of these types of compromises have ended up), or we’d chug over the fiscal cliff.

There ain’t a good option amongst those.

Marcus, if you can’t see all the ideas that Republicans and conservatives have put on the table the last few years, then where in bloody blue blazes have you been? We have plenty of ideas, just none good enough or persuasive enough to get enough of the caucus behind. But at least we have ideas, instead of being stuck in permanent 20th century “tax and spend” mode like the Democrats.

“I was convinced from the beginning that we were well and truly buggered
no matter how this came out. Either we were going to concede everything
to the Democrats, or we were going to come up with some half-assed
compromise that involved raising taxes now for the promise of mythical
spending cuts later”

CORRECT!

So bashing some group or another group on OUR SIDE for how buggered we are is wrong and futile.

If we shut down that Govt, then conservatives have leverage since govt isnt working.
When its about $400b/year tax hike, much different story. GOP base hardest hit! going off the fiscal cliff is a leftists’ wet dream. They get more revenues.
Most of them are FINE with taxing all Americans more.

I dont get this shortsighted conservative belief that going off the cliff is somehow a good thing. In the end, its a win for Big Govt either way.

I say go for it. We’ll see if that is good economic policy. If so, we deserve to lose. If not, then we have an issue.

Spread this around: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/21/House-Republican-members-circulate-plan-to-oust-Speaker?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BigGovernment+%28Big+Government%29

House Conservative Members are making plans now! Contact your GOP member and ask him/her to get on board!

The three top GOP leaders were mistaked when they thought the best way to lead the GOP conference was to use the same threats, tactics, and rewards that Nancy Pelosi uses.

Are those the same tactics Pelosi uses? I don’t ever remember hearing of democrats punishing members for being to far left, which is the equivalent of Boehner and Cantor’s war on conservatives.

The Party of Lincoln . . . Is that supposed to be a compliment or a label that stuck?
In my debunking quest, I read that the words Boothe spoke so famously were quite germane at the time. Lincoln not that popular as much as feared. Whether or not that latest book was debunking a myth or bunk itself still gives me pause for thought. The politics we see right now has a divided country with a leader who seeks to divide at every turn. The GOP is falling all over itself all the while the Party of Asses play their part to the hilt.

I’m left thinking they ALL just want re-election. Everyone knows the “Fiscal Cliff” threshold has passed. We could now wait months for any “real” work to come from Congress. It sure as hell isn’t coming from the Executive Branch in any shape or form.
All the plans and next moves we discuss here are basically moot. Are you going to vote the incumbent in again? Of course you will because the other guy will and why throw away your vote?

I’ll be here 4 years from now and re-post this.

Sliverlining