Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
Well, it looks like we won't have a government shutdown. Speaker of the House John Boehner is being applauded for his handling of the negotiations. The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin praises him, then points out he was helped by the other side. Here's a snippet from her piece "Boehner gets $39B, Harry Reid gets nothing":
Boehner did have something going for him: a completely incompetent White House. The errors include never having an alternative short-term continuing resolution on the table (letting the GOP’s short-term CR be the only “stop the shutdown” document out there for two days); not stepping in to signal that the troops would be paid in some fashion; issuing an incomprehensible veto threat with no alternative; overestimating Boehner’s need to get the Planned Parenthood rider; and underestimating Boehner’s ability to make this about the most popular issue (cutting the deficit). These major White House errors compounded the error of never getting a 2011 budget done when there were large Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate.
So what do you think? It's only $39 billion in cuts and the Democrats were able to keep $330+ million of your hard-earned tax dollars going to the country's biggest abortion provider -- Planned Parenthood. But it sounds like people here in town are impressed with how much Boehner was able to do with his cards.
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
Somebody help me out. Will this be $39 billion in cuts on top of the cuts from the previous continuing resolutions? If so, what are the total cuts for the year-- and how do they compare to the $61 billion from HR 1?
Jul '10
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
I despise Planned Parenthood. But, given the division of political power in Washington, that's a battle for later.
May '10
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
Boehner caved
Jan '11
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
To say that the Obama White House is incompetent is to damn with faint praise.
Apr '11
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
By my math, $39bn is about 3% of the current-year budget deficit of $1.4trillion, so I hope no one is going to go around claiming any sort of victory on this. I'm a simple sort of fellow and as far as I can tell, all this means is that we will now need to borrow a mere $1.361bn from the Chinese this year.
Feb '11
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
So to protect Minas Morgul, they ceded the outskirts of Osgiliath. Not a war-winner by any stretch of the imagination; the direction, however, is encouraging, though the momentum may be underwhelming.
Jun '10
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
Completely agree. We're going to have a chance to fight the battle, perhaps under even better circumstances.
May '10
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
This is fine. A non-loss is all we needed here, and this qualifies. On to the Ryan budget battle!
Aug '10
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
Still sucks though, embarrassing the lack of resolve.
Edited on Apr 8, 2011 at 8:35pmWhere do we draw a line in the sand ?
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
It's interesting to see how different people are responding to the deal. Here in town, with Dems controlling the White House and Senate, Boehner is seen to have done a great job holding the Republicans together, getting a ton of concessions and changing the terms of the debate.
I'd like to learn more about what others think -- what, for instance, is the "embarrassing lack of resolve"? What were you hoping for, given how little power Republicans have here? Or what does it mean to say Boehner "caved"?
I don't have a particular dog in this fight, I'm just curious about what these things mean ...
Jul '10
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
Math 101:
39 Does NOT Equal 100. That's it! Period!
No Backbone again.
Mar '11
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
Mollie,
You need to get outa town more :-)
They explained it pretty well on Fox News - this is just a preliminary skirmish, before the Debt Limit and Paul Ryan's budget. Jennifer Rubin knows a lot more about negotiating than I do, so I am happy that Boehner is doing a good job - but there is a limit to what he can do (he obviously knows this).
The big issue is winning the Presidency next year (I assume we will win the Senate, but not enough to override a Presidential veto) - we won't get onto the trillions until then. And that is what worries me - we need Paul Ryan to run for President, and he won't.
Jul '10
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
I don't think Boehner caved, I think the deal was a realistic outcome based on the current balance of power and the lack of focus on the part of the opposition. We set the stage for the budget battle with these CR skirmishes.
The only reason Boehner is in a position to force any kind of cuts for FY 2011 is the incompetence of the 111st in failing to produce a budget, a unique failure of historic proportions.
The good news? The Dems have worked so hard to paint $6B as unacceptable, draconian cuts, that now they have to explain cuts over six times that size not causing chaos and panic. I'm sure Krugman is hard at work right now on this very problem.
Jul '10
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
To those who said the planned parenthood battle is for later, I completely agree. The big ammunition needs to be used for the Ryan budget battle - and then the 2012 elections.
Dec '10
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
I am willing to call it a small victory and move on to the next fight with increasing enthusiasm on our side and hopefully some weakening on the part of Democrats. I truly think it was about the best Boehner thought he could do with this one.
Jul '10
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
It is more than I expected and less than I wanted. Some talk was made about strategy for the next election. I think many of us feel we're beyond the usual politicking. Responsibility and cutting the deficit are the horns to sound and this keeps the GOP on that path. It is key that this got done after Ryan's budget was introduced.
Apr '11
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
$39 billion trims less than 10 days of this years deficit. The promise was $100 billion. I still don't think they got the message from November. They have also done a really poor job of explaining this is a Pelosi-Reid-Obama mess they are cleaning up. As Paul Ryan said in passing in his video clip, the budget process starts in April. This is work the Dem's should have been doing a year ago and blew off.
Jun '10
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
It's something. The bigger fight is to come and Republicans need to be able to effectively counter the Democrat demagoguery with talking points and arguments that resonate with the American people - especially Independent voters. Consider the Ryan plan as the platform for debate leading up to the election. We also need another platform attacking Obama's dismal foreign policy record...who is working on that?
Mar '11
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
Baby steps is what it is going to take. Firm resolve, standing up for principles and baby steps. To make Planned Parenthood a cause celebre is insanity unless you want to fail. There are innumerable programs that have no business receiving government funding - Planned Parenthood is just one. To even mention it without discussing at least some of the other bad programs is just wrong and stupid.
If you want to marginalize a great movement to limit government powers and spending, carry on as if that is worth singling out. If you do, you will lose and achieve nothing. The government does not and should never have the right to extract resources from its citizens to fund programs such as Planned Parenthood and a million others. Stay on point and stay on principle, not single issues. Keep the tent big.
Sep '10
Re: Shutdown Averted, Boehner Praised
How would Donald Trump say it?
"I've paid more in alimony than these guys have cut from the budget."