In 2008, then-Minority Leader John Boehner urged Republicans to vote for the TARP- a $750 billion Government bailout, calling it a “crap sandwich” but he voted for it and led Republicans to vote for it.
In 2011 When Speaker Boehner had a chance to demand real fiscal change, he instead blinked when facing President Obama and relented with a milquetoast deal that raised the debt ceiling with the feckless expectation that a bi-partisan commission would come up with cuts or there would be automatic spending cuts. The bi-partisan commission predictably failed and the cuts that were proposed to justify the last giant increase in the debt ceiling have been something every politician has been trying to avoid occurring.
Then this past year, Speaker Boehner, floundered in negotiations with President Obama punted to the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, ending up with a bill that increases the debt limit by increasing taxes $40 for every $1 in spending cuts.
Talk about crap sandwiches. It’s time for John Boehner to go.
He became Republican leader in 2006 after Tom DeLay resigned. He was chosen as a compromise candidate between the status quo roughshod management style of then Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Conservative Stalwart John Shadegg (R-Az.). He is Speaker by accident and he has shown no talents particular for the job.
Boehner has no negotiating acumen. He is constantly outmaneuvered at every turn by the White House in negotiations. Despite, a working class background, he does not communicate effectively with the American people.
He doesn’t seem to have a Caucus that’s willing to follow him. He proposed a “Plan B” that would raise taxes only on those earning $1 million or more and was unable to get his own caucus to support it. This could have been because, knowing that he would need conservative support for any sort of debt ceiling deal, he antagonized that part of his caucus by punishing four members of the Caucus for not towing the party line. He’s no better with the moderate side of the Republican Caucus. When he was minority leader, he failed to get the moderates to go along with an earmark ban within the Republican Caucus.
The only sort of “leadership” Boehner is capable of is presenting doomsday scenarios as he did on TARP and on the fiscal cliff to frighten cowardly politicians into betraying conservative principles. John Boehner is like a general whose only talent is leading retreats.
When people speak of John Boehner and his defense, they say he’s a good man. I don’t dispute it, but that’s not good enough. They say it’s a tough job, and they’re right. But the fact remains that it’s a tough job he has shown himself incapable of doing.
They may even argue in defense of this bill that it was necessary for Republicans to get the tax issue off the table. The debate had ceased to be about deficit spending and had become about the willingness of Republicans to vainly block tax increases on the rich. Their may be a kernel of truth to that, but whose fault is it that the debate got away from Republicans? None other than Boehner’s.
Republicans might hope that with the tax issue off the table they can turn this debate back to spending and reducing our mammoth debt. However, they’d be wrong, as long as John Boehner remains Speaker of the House. Boehner has turned the Speaker’s office into a veritable “Crap Sandwich” stand and Democrats can expect that he will cry and quote poetry, but at the end of the day, he will blink and once again he’ll serve up his apologies and tell the House and the American people to swallow the latest confection that has happened to him. If Republicans expect a different result, they’d better get a different Speaker.
Nothing symbolizes what’s wrong with the Republican Party in America than that the fact that John Boehner is the most powerful Republican in this country. As long as that’s the case, the Republican Party is pointless and irrelevant. The Republican Party’s position today is reminiscent of the post-World War II GOP that enjoyed terms in the majority but squandered it’s time there behind the listless leadership of Speaker Joseph Martin who led the Republican Party to become a minority for forty years.
If there are not seventeen members in the entire House Republican membership who have the courage to prevent the re-election of this leader who is dragging our Party and our country, than the Republican Party isn’t worth a red cent. To be clear, if John Boehner is re-elected Speaker of the House, I intend to expend no effort for and give no money to the national Republican Party and its various committees. As long as John Boehner remains America’s most influential Republican, it is a waste of time, energy, and money.
