Seriously, what does John Boehner think he’s doing? He’s spent the last two days in an embarrassing attempt to round up enough Republican votes to ram his lousy debt plan through the House. He keeps scheduling votes, and then he has to postpone them because he cannot get the teabaggers to sign on. Then he wastes more time trying to bring enough of them on board to pass the stupid thing.
He even tried crying, as I predicted he would. But that didn’t work either.
And all this, even though he knows full well – because Harry Reid has said so again, and again, and again, that the plan is dead on arrival in the Senate (and if, by some miracle, it got through the Senate, Obama would veto it). It cannot become law. It is a waste of time.
Boehner, then, apparently has decided that it’s worth sacrificing his Speakership on the altar of a bill that, even if he manages to finagle a few more Republican votes to get it out of the House, will quickly die in the Senate. What he will achieve through this exercise is to demonstrate, in the most public way possible, that he cannot control his caucus. That he is a truly ineffective Speaker. Eric Cantor must be ecstatic.
Meanwhile, the rest of us watch helplessly as our mortgage rates threaten to shoot up, and our retirement accounts threaten to crater. Awesome.
UPDATE (noon): Details have emerged of the new, improved Boehner plan:
House Republicans will attach a balanced-budget amendment to Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) last-ditch debt-ceiling plan, which GOP lawmakers said would move the measure to passage in a high-stakes vote later on Friday….
Republican lawmakers say the Boehner framework would still pave the way for the debt limit to be raised through the 2012 election in two chunks. But it would also mandate that the second hike of the ceiling could only occur after a balanced-budget amendment passed both chambers of Congress and went to the states for ratification.
That is perhaps the stupidest thing I have ever seen. Even Bill Kristol calls it a “pointless and embarrassing gimmick.” The change in the bill guarantees not only that this bill will well and truly die in the Senate, but also that, in the event it somehow became law, the United States would be certain to default on its obligations in a few months.
Utter foolishness from the House. Boehner is a disgrace.
Christopher says
At least he’s trying SOMETHING even if it will be voted down. He does not appear to be hoping for default like some of his caucus seem to be doing.
hoyapaul says
then he would start working with Democrats and a small handful of Republicans willing to pass either a clean debt limit increase or one with modest cuts. But that’s not what he’s trying to do. He made his bed by using the Tea Party to become Speaker, and now he’s lying in it. No sympathy from me.
David says
Boehner is a failure. What is the point of passing a bill that you know is DOA, especially when time is of the essence? He may not be hoping for default, but he is too weak to do anything about it.
seascraper says
If this debate was bad for the Republicans Obama wouldn’t be trying to push off the next episode until after the 2012 election. All the ranting, including 17 stories a day on Scott Brown means that the Dems are playing the Republican’s game.
hoyapaul says
That’s a good one. If the Republicans were politically smart — and in the modern Tea Party era they are not — they would never want to relive this debt limit fight in the midst of an election year. Why the hell would Boehner want to go have his caucus fracture yet again before the elections, and this time with much more specific cuts that gore even more people’s oxen?
Another one of these would not be good for the country, which is why Democrats oppose it, but it also wouldn’t be good for Republicans.
howlandlewnatick says
I get confused about “Black Humor”, “Theatre of the Absurd” and “Dark Farce”. What’s the DC “leadership” doing? Can we join in? Let’s put on clown costume (I understand Mr Gacy’s is available) and search the parking lots for pennies to send in to cure the crisis.
What if the American people wake up and realize the joke’s on them?
“But if you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit.” –Josiah Stamp
And how do I change the spell checker from British English. {hmmm… Maybe we didn’t win the Revolution after all.}
SomervilleTom says
The best policy from Barack Obama and the Democrats is for them to say:
We will not repeat the catastrophic mistake of 1937. We will take whatever steps are necessary to put this nation’s wealth back in circulation so that the consumers who are the heart, soul, and backbone of America are again able to provide for their families and themselves. We will increase the debt ceiling. We will increase unemployment benefits. We will put more of our wealth in mainstream America’s pockets, and less in the vaults of our wealthiest few.
Our problem is not that too many have less than they need, our problem is that a tiny handful have so much more than they need.