Posted on 01/03/2013 4:54:20 AM PST by upchuck
Later today, John Boehner will be reelected Speaker of the House by his colleagues.
That vote will the first piece of good news Boehner has received in weeks. Consider that since mid-December Boehner has: a) watched as his plan to rally the House around extending the Bush tax cuts for all but those earning more than $1 million a year go down in flames, b) been totally cut out of the final fiscal cliff negotiations, and c) been pilloried by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for delaying a vote on Hurricane Sandy relief.
Boehner then finds himself reelected to the speakership at his own personal low point in the office, a bit of timing that raises a simple yet profound question: Where does he go from here?
“Is he taking a hit right now? Yes,” said Kevin Madden, a former Boehner aide. “But even the members voting ‘no’ on the agreement who also may not publicly support John privately appreciate his effort.” Madden added: “He’s going to get right back up, get back into the huddle and get his team ready for the next play.”
That next play will almost certainly be the debt ceiling fight, and the stakes are high. ”He had better deliver on spending cuts and entitlement reform come debt ceiling time,” said one senior party strategist.
That’s easier said than done. Boehner will (again) be caught between the conservative/tea party wing of his party who will refuse to give up the leverage of the debt ceiling and President Obama, who made clear before he left for Hawaii that he has no plans to watch as the debt ceiling is used as a bargaining chip.
That reality provokes an even more interesting question: Does Boehner want to be speaker anymore? And, if so, for how long?
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
If the RINO’s don’t have enough votes to subject us to this pathetic lush again, surely the rats will kick in enough votes for him. Boehner is the perfect democrat...easily passes their agenda and destroys what is left of the Republican party in the process.
The fix has always been in. The Republican establishment plays conservatives like a fiddle. Nothing short of a mass exodus from the party will make a dent in their hard heads.
Every ‘republican’ ( R-person? ) who votes for this BACKSTABBING RINO should get a well-funded challanger next time and NO $$$ from the rest of us.
“”He had better deliver on spending cuts and entitlement reform come debt ceiling time,” said one senior party strategist.”
Or what? What will they do? My belief, nothing!
Boehner’s kicking strong conservatives off the committees was the last straw for me. That feeling was merely magnified when he totally fu*ked up the “fiscal cliff” boondoggle.
He REALLY needs to go.
West, Goemert(sp?), etc.
If the wash compost and Chrissie are cheering boners then we know the GOP is gone and its time for a new party .
He is lobbyist crock and drunk .
Perfect set up for s a dem 2014 sweep
Just watch, Boehner will be easily voted back in and he will fold on the debt ceiling after another long drawn out last minute early a.m. closed door deal. Has he ever acted differently?
The problem isn’t just Boehner. He may be a poor to non-existent leader and a poor negotiator, but the real problem is that the majority of the GOP Reps. support these policies or even support Dem policies with a few minor cosmetic changes.
I’m not sure it would matter who’s technically in charge there. I’d be happy to be proved wrong and have them pick somebody who’s going to make changes and get them all going in the right direction, but that’s so unlikely that I don’t even know why we’re considering it. They’d have to want to go in that direction in the first place, and most of them don’t want to.
K street lobbyists owns the GOP .
Boner has destroyed the GOP .
He has funded Obamacare because K St. wanted it funded !
The GOP will be gone by 2014 !
They are beyond stupid !
The tea party’s going to be busy if they try to primary every GOP sellout voting for Boehner.
K st run the GOP .
Boner was ordered to finance the massive military contractors !
He could care less about our tax increases or the GOP is
Destroyed !
Its all about funding these crooked Beltway bandits !
No, the problem is a voter problem - no different than Greece, Spain, Italy or pretty much anywhere else in the West.
When people hear from the left and their media allies that we can have a giant social welfare state and running big deficit/debts doesn't matter, they will generally support that. Even Reagan couldn't cut anything and had to run deficits in order to build up our defense. It is hard to defeat Santa Claus. Most Republicans know if they talk about and vote for real cuts in entitlements, actual cuts in social programs, etc, that their career will likely be extremely short.
It's easy to blame Boehner, but the next person will likely do no better. Political realities will smack them in the face when they realize their is just no support among the public for any specific cuts to anything.
Nothing will likely be done to reign in our debt till there is literally no choice. When we arrive on the brink of economic collapse, then their MIGHT be a willingness to make real reductions in the welfare state - and even then the public may not believe it has to be done till our entire economic house of cards collapses. The problem is with what passes as the "American public" these days. We have a people problem.
Completely agree. It will take something very bad to cause a change. It’s only a matter of time. The tea party must do the right thing and not let the debt limit be raised. This would be a good first step.
The problem is definitely with the voters. Somebody elects these people to begin with, and they don’t just spring out of thin air. It is true that a lot of them seem to get worse the longer they spend in Congress, and perhaps term limits would help somewhat. I’d say 4 terms or in other words, 8 years, would do just fine as a max for Congress critters, or perhaps even only 3 terms so they wouldn’t coincide with presidential elections too often. This would make people reevaluate their choices more often.
However, the choices as filtered through the GOP-e that controls nominations are frequently awful, such as in the case of Romney, and yet even that happens because the GOP-e knows they can get away with it since not enough people care.
I don’t even think it’s entirely about Santa Claus: it’s more about inertia, a passive attitude towards government and life, and the fact that more and more of voters are drawing on nothing but a vast pool of ignorance accumulated from nearly 50 years of completely content-free public education and social manipulation.
This is definitely true. Add to that the Hispanics we are importing and making citizens. These people have been voting socialist in Mexico for 75+ years. Of course they are going to vote the same here. This rapidly growing immigrant group is not steeped in free markets, knows nothing about what made America great, and are not terribly committed to the well being of this nation anyway. For many of them, feeding from the carcass and sending money home is enough. When things really go to hell here, they'll just go back where they came from.
But one problem I see consistently here is the screaming about the GOP "establishment". The "establishment", such that it, certainly has entrenched interests and is loathe to change, but the real problem is the voters. The people simply do not want to significantly scale back the massive social welfare state we've created. Think what passes as conservatives in places like Europe and Canada, and how they got to that point. As the state expands, the entire population tend to look at government different. You couldn't even get most conservatives to agree to ditch the socialist health systems in Europe (or Canada). Despite all its flaws, the people are now used to these systems and can't imagine life with out them. Nevermind that those socialist healthcare systems are unaffordable in the long term and provide a declining level of service as the whole thing slowly implodes. Look at any poll here, even among supposed conservatives, and you'll find precious little support for trimming back Medicare, Social Security, etc.
We have a people problem. And until we can get through to the voters, the "establishment" will never really change. You could put a Tea Party guy or gal in leadership tomorrow and they couldn't succeed because the population is just not with them on real cuts. Even Reagan couldn't really cut anything and ended up running big deficits. Yes he did the right thing, the trade-off was worth it because we had to win the Cold War - but the point is cutting much of anything is near impossible until the people are supportive of politicians that actually do it. Unfortunately in a democratic system voters tend to vote for what they want, not what they need.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.