I’ve noted this before but it seems to me that the Republican Party as it has developed since the Great Depression is much more comfortable with being in the minority than the majority. They don’t want to get things done or expand the role of government in any way, so actually governing is a burden to them. Yes, they console themselves by looting the treasury for their rich benefactors, but they seem to enjoy standing on the sidelines more. Speaker Boehner is not enjoying himself. I am almost certain that he’d enjoy life much more if he could return to his role as Minority Leader. I just don’t think the conservative mind is capable of taking care of the duties of governance in any kind of competent way. What we’re witnessing from the House is no different than what we witnessed during Hurricane Katrina. Boehner is doing basically nothing to address the debt limit crisis, and what he is doing, he’s doing wrong.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Boehner is like a bully who knows he’s about to be pummeled in a fight but decides he has to tie his shoe beforehand . . . very, very, very slowly.
Eh, he seems to be rallying his troops for his plan.
Probably only because Harry Reid has come out and said it’s completely unacceptable and won’t be able to pass the Senate.
Now it’s a challenge – the House GOP will pass it and dare Reid to hold a vote. A few Dems defect and it goes to the President’s desk. Dems don’t defect and vote against it and the House can say “we tried – those mean Democrats refused to compromise”.
Or Reid uses the bill number for the Senate bill (gut and stuff the content of the bill), passes it, and sends it to reconciliation with the House.
Then a few Republicans will have to defect. The clock has run out. If the Repubicans refuse, they are the ones who refused to compromise and they complain about Harry Reid’s “unconstitutional and dirty tricks”
We now know what the buzzer-beater plays look like. So now it’s down to who wins the timing and whether they sink the shot. Or the buzzer sounds “game over” without a bill.
Or, Boehner moves the House bill close enough to the Senate bill to pass the House with Dem votes, the Senate makes its tweaks, it goes to both houses of Congress and the reconciliation is rubber stamped by the folks who are safe from attacks for voting for the bill.
That’s probably what Reid will do, which of course the media will dutifully report as Reid and Boehner playing games. Both sides do it, after all.
Actually this quote from Boehner doesn’t make me hopeful:
It’s one thing for me to suspect that this is going on – it’s another for the GOP Speaker to bluntly state that “a lot” of his caucus is balls-out crazy.
But I still think it ends in a voice vote and barely passes rather than having something that ends up with a tally of who voted for what.
If it’s a voice vote, how would you know about “barely passes”. I think there are motives on both sides to ask for a recorded vote. Which will likely go 51 Democrats For, 46 Republicans, 3 Independents Against.
I think it is likely that Liberman, Murkowski, and Sanders all will vote against the bill.
In the House, it will be 167 Democrats 50 Republicans For, 26 Democrats 190 Republicans Against.
Once again Democrats will have to carry the full weight for a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t measure.
But I still don’t see avoiding a train wreck. Can Boehner get 50 votes for Reid-McConnell? Will the House progressive Democrats avoid bolting over Reid-McConnell?
It will never make it Obama’s desk. But it comes as no surprise that the GOP House is cobbling together something to pass. That is the only way that they can come out and blame the Senate Dems and the President for things not moving forward.
They have to give the media something around which all the talking heads can create a foundational narrative that the Democrats and Obama are at fault. That is all this is about, is the politics. When the clock runs out, it is imperative that the Dems be the ones standing there holding the ball. That is all this vote will be.
I have little doubt that much of the mainstream media will comply. Whether it will work in the court of public opinion remains to be seen.
I actually don’t doubt at all that a default or a government shutdown will see the Republicans blamed rather than the Democrats.
Republicans are losing the script – “everybody knows” that Republicans hate government. That’s their brand! “Everybody knows” that Democrats love government. Republicans have worked their asses off for 40+ years driving those twin points home year after year, election after election. Billions of dollars have been spent over the past decades to insert those twin ideas into the brains of every voter in the country.
Likewise, “everybody knows” that Republicans are strong he-man types who never back down while “everybody knows” that Democrats are a spineless cross between a jellyfish and weasel who fall over in a light breeze. Again, billions of dollars have been spent over the past decades to cement those ideas into the voter consciousness.
So suddenly the government fails because of shenanigans in Washington DC. Who’s responsible? Well clearly it can’t be the Democrats because they’re spineless weasels who can’t stick to their guns and fold and they’ll do anything to keep their precious government that they love so much functioning. Meanwhile Republicans hate government and, muscular he-men that they are, refuse to bargain.
The narrative of half a century that they’ve worked so hard to put in place works against them. Nobody outside the Fox bubble is going to believe that Democrats are responsible for shutting down the government. Just like nobody believed it when Newt tried to blame Clinton for shutting things down.
ding ding ding! Well done.
The modern Republican party is a purely political organization. They are no good at governance because they don’t need to be good at governance. In fact being good at governance would be bad for them. Their entire ideology is based on the premise that government can never do anything positive for anyone.
Note that driving the country into disaster is a feature to the die-hards. “See what happens when a government gets too big – disaster!” The fact that they cause the disaster by being bad at governing is beside the point – the mere fact that it’s possible and being shown in such a dramatic way is enough to advance their ideas.
They don’t think it through, but that’s because most of the die-hards are soft middle-class/upper-middle class/rich white guys who haven’t ever really had to live through anything resembling actual hard times.
Oh well, it’s a job. With a staff of about 35 to handle most of it – not to mention an annual salary of $223,500 plus those checks from tobacco lobbyists. Government service pays quite well if you don’t want to actually work for a living.
$223,500 is 37 average taxpayers working all year plus one average taxpayer working three months just to pay for the Orange Julius.
As incomes go down, that number of taxpayers goes up.
I’m a big proponent of taxpayer-equivalent budgeting. But I would use the median tax bill instead of the average. Because of the income distribution (long tail toward the rich, the average is higher than the median).
Related topic. FDL does some excellent reporting on Standard & Poors statements and how they might be violations of securities law. And yes, it is a Jane Hamsher byline. Ignore the usual drivel in the comments.
No, that’s wrong. Boehner is creating the debt limit crisis. This crisis only exists because House Republicans have refused to do what every other Congress has done when we’ve run up against the limit in the past.
This isn’t like Bush during Katrina. Bush was simply incompetent to the task. It’s as though, on discovering that there was a Category 5 hurricane bearing down on New Orleans, Bush had dynamited all the bridges leaving leaving the city before anyone had managed to evacuate.
I had the same thought myself. Republicans have been very effective in the minority. All they have to do is to hold the line and force Democrats to negotiate with their most conservative members. Legislation is shifted rightward, liberals become incensed with Democrats, and Republicans achieve all of this without ever having to compromise or take any responsibility.
easier politically to be for something that will never happen OR that will happen no matter what you individually do. Examples of this include being Pro-Life, a deficit hawk (of any variety) and an opponent to TARP.
What I find most interesting about the current state of affairs is that in the last 2 days, the only person who has dared to still mention revenues is the President, but according to the mainstream media he has “checked out” and to liberals he’s a sell-out. Are liberals seriously going to celebrate when a bill is ultimately passed that includes a trillion or two in cuts and absolutely no revenue because it was delivered by Harry Reid instead President Obama? Seriously, I’m trying to figure out the progressive position here.
Nope, Harry Reid has been on progressive’s shit list since he let Roberts and Alito onto the court.
The progressive position right now is all over the lot, but mostly it’s hands off of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. And also, no Catfood Commission II. Although there’s been some movement toward using the 14th amendment to overturn the debt ceiling. That does not mean that he can incur debt to cover more than has been appropriated by Congress however. So it is no way a blank check or a thwarting of the will of Congress.
Likely that will be his position if there is a stalemate. Jim Clyburn has already been setting the table for this.
The question, while we are waiting for whatever will happen to happen, is how it affects the politics of the FY2012 appropriations, which must have something by October 1. Will it help the President’s power or not. The Tea Party folks are betting that a stalemate brings him down through accusations of Presidential tyranny (same old shit).
It doesn’t matter how liberals or progressives see the President until June or July 2012. That’s when they have to make their decisions about volunteering.
But I’m not convinced Boehner is as incompetent as you’ve been painting. He’s just gotten the House Republicans to pass his bill, not a small thing given how many Republicans were swearing they’d never raise the debt ceiling without a balanced budget amendment.
My mistake. I read Chait’s article that I thought said Boehner’s bill had been passed, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/92760/boehner-uses-partisanship-defeat-tactical-radicalism#co
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