“Plan B” Fails – John Boehner is a national joke

Filed in National by on December 20, 2012

Boehner is now a SPINO, “Speaker in name only.” He didn’t have the votes to pass “Plan B” and he doesn’t have enough votes to close a deal with the President prior to going down the fiscal slope. He doesn’t even have standing to negotiate.

The likely truth is that John Boehner never had the votes to cut a deal with President Obama. Any deal. Not a grand bargain of deficit reduction. Not a piecemeal deal that might have lessened the blow of all the Bush tax cuts expiring on Jan. 1. Nothing.

If that’s true, as I strongly suspect it is, then, yes, the last six weeks since the election have been a tour de force of kabuki theater. His Plan B was probably, in that scenario, his last ditch effort to escape this fiasco without having to admit that he never had the votes. Now that has failed, too, after a desperate 11th hour attempt to cajole, whip and bludgeon his Republican Members into voting for it.

It is easy to overreact to these things in the moment, to overread them. But Speaker Boehner just put it all on the line. The entire nation was watching, and he was exposed. He knows it. His conference knows it. Anyone left in Washington who had doubts about this speaker’s clout now knows it, too. In a parliamentary system, he would resign and his party would elect a new leader. We don’t do it that way here … usually. But it’s hard to see how Speaker Boehner continues from here — or why he would want to.

David Kurtz – TPM

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Jason330 is a deep cover double agent working for the GOP. Don't tell anybody.

Comments (19)

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  1. Ezra Temko says:

    So given this development, what happens between now and December 31?

  2. jason330 says:

    Without enough votes to close a deal – Boehner is stuck with the wingnut pile of poo the house already passed. Which can’t pass the senate – so it has to be fiscal cliff.

  3. Obe1katobe says:

    Wow! This ‘Plan B’ was a colossal failure by Boehner and Cantor. The Democrats, at least a plurality of them, would have gone with an Obama-Boehner compromise even with a cut in Social Security COLAs and a higher threshold of tax rate increases, say $500k as opposed to the President’s original offer of $250,000. The Dems would have stuck by the President here (see Pelosi’s comments all week). And Boehner should have had enough clout in his caucus to round up enough votes to get this through. Instead, we have the worst negotiator/political hack in John Boehner as Speaker perhaps in recent memory. Even Newt Gingrich figured out how to eventually work with Bill Clinton and, of course, Tip O’Neil with Ronald Reagan. Bi-partisanship can be done if you have honorable AND skilled players on both sides. Lay the ‘fiscal cliff,’ sequestration and any economic consequences for this time-wasting blunder squarely at his and the Tea Party’s doorstep. What a boob!

  4. You’re SPINO comment is getting passed around on Twitter right now.

  5. John Young says:

    How do we truly know this isn’t what he wanted all along?

  6. jason330 says:

    So one of these three things has to happen:

    1) The House passes a bill acceptable to a majority of Democrats and a (probably small) minority of Republicans.

    2) Boehner goes back to his gang of nuts and tries to offer them plan C—that is, something even more outrageous.

    3) President Obama gives Boehner a lifeline by offering something that can get through the Republican caucus. It would have to be REALLY terrible, because “if the ultranuts had an inkling that what they’re voting on just might be acceptable to Obama, they’d probably freak out yet again.”

  7. jason330 says:

    @Unstable Isotope Twitter… The big time!

  8. Hey, that’s where the journalists hang out.

  9. I think the most likely outcome is the House passes the cuts for $250K and below, with most Republicans voting present. The sequester goes into place. The GOP tries to make a fit about the debt ceiling.

  10. jason330 says:

    I was being serious. I’m on facebook now, so I’ll discover twitter in about three years.

  11. Liberal Elite says:

    And so over the cliff we go. This will be resolved on or about Jan 21, a month from today.

  12. puck says:

    LOL… First Obama snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. Then Boehner snatches it back. Now we wait to see if Obama makes another grab for it. Who wants it more?

    Is Obama just lucky, or is he practicing some kind of jujitsu? I know one thing, Obama is blessed with the dumbest opponents on the planet.

  13. pandora says:

    I think Obama knows he’s dealing with the dumbest opponents on the planet. He ends up looking reasonable and considerate, which immediately guarantees that Republicans will howl and move further to the right – they cannot ever appear to be in agreement with Obama.

    Boehner is toast – although the truth is that no one can lead today’s GOP. Yet again, Obama merely has to offer compromise. He rarely has to follow through because Republicans will kill any idea that Obama “says” he can live with.

    Obama’s approval ratings are no accident. And while most people don’t follow the specifics, the optics always end up to the President’s advantage.

    Republicans are dysfunctional, clowns who don’t even begin to know how to govern. Obama seems to know that by being “reasonable” how the GOP will react. Honestly, it’s Pavlovian.

  14. jason330 says:

    Obama REALLY wants to avoid sequestration. The question is, whether there are enough disgruntled moderate Republicans left in Congress to join the Democrats to pass deal to prevent sequestration and the automatic military cuts?

    Depending on “moderate” Republicans is not where you want to be. Frankly, I’m a bit worried about what the President might offer to get them. Revisiting the Articles of Confederation? Repeal of the Emancipation Proclamation? Everything is on the table.

  15. Donviti says:

    Boner may be a bad negotiator, but hes second to the POTUS. Over the cliff we go, its the only way Obama seems to be able to cut Defense

  16. Truth Teller says:

    According to the Mayan Calendar the world was supposed to end last night and it appears that it has for the GOP>

    Question How much effort do you think that little Eric cantor put in to help Boehner obtain the votes needed to pass????

    Boehner problem is that he never acted like speaker of the entire house just the Teabaggers.

  17. cassandra m says:

    You can see the flop sweat in Boehner’s press conference. Basically he couldn’t get the votes for anything. So now it looks like Boehner does not have a football to pull away. Am watching the news and even on npr the narrative seems to be Republicans In Disarray.

  18. kavips says:

    I haven’t heard yet. The Republicans. Did they not go along because the $1 million was too high of a figure, and therefore not realistic?… Or, what I’m afraid they are saying, is that, tax hikes period on any wealth, are not going to get their vote? At least, $1 million was too low of a figure. Why exactly did they not approve the over $1 million discontinuance of the tax cuts?

  19. jason330 says:

    My sense is that tax hikes period on any wealth, were out of the question. The GOP is in the hands of lunatics.