Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
Wow. This criticism of John Boehner from the Tea Party seems exceedingly rash:
Tea Party Nation leader Judson Phillips...was more strident in his criticism. "Boehner has no real interest in solving the problems this country faces. ... He worships at the altar of massive spending," he wrote. "We need a Speaker who is a leader. We need someone with courage and vision. Boehner has none of those qualities. He is not a leader."
Phillips urged readers to call their legislators and advocate for Boehner "to go" and be replaced by a "Tea Party Speaker of the House."
I'm sympathetic to the Tea Party objectives of slashing spending and addressing the deficit and debt in a serious way, but I just don't see how the ouster of John Boehner and the installment of a Tea Party Speaker would enable us to make progress on those objectives so long as Democrats control the White House and the Senate.
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Aug '10
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
Yikes,
He and that RINO Cantor- what feckless squishes they turned out to be.
I kid because I care.
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
Diane, I think this represents frustration with the Speaker's instinct to negotiate with himself. Consider: Cut, Cap and Balance passed the House and was kept off the Senate floor by Harry Reid on a procedural vote (that very nearly passed).
So why is Boehner scrambling to come up with alternative after alternative? How about saying, "We passed our plan and the Senate should make an up or down vote on Cut, Cap and Balance."
The feeling for tea party enthusiasts is that CCB was for show and the real action is in the negotiations over rolling another trillion or three onto the national debt with no meaningful spending reform.
Edited on Jul 27, 2011 at 12:55pmJul '10
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
I part company with Mr. Phillips on this one. He hits my mailbox almost daily as a fixture in the Tea Party firmament. Boehner has somewhat rehabilitated himself in my eyes the last two weeks after a string of embarrassments like the $36B non-cut.
As a visible Tea Party leader, he is naturally frustrated by the absence of any Tea Party representation in the House leadership and he does not trust Boehner to arrive at a credible result. If Judson Phillips wants Tea Party in leadership, Boehner has signaled to him that the Tea Party needs to win enough seats to control the GOP caucus.
But I think Phillips would be better advised to strengthen the Tea Party argument for reason rather than threatening a Speaker who may already be a reluctant ally with a caucus to satisfy. And to save a few harsh words for members that took Tea Party money and voted to extend Obamacare to veterinarians. Fail!
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
George Savage: Diane, I think this represents frustration with the Speaker's instinct to negotiate with himself. Consider: Cut, Cap and Balance passed the House and was kept off the Senate floor by Harry Reid on a procedural vote (that very nearly passed).
So why is Boehner scrambling to come up with alternative after alternative? How about saying, "We passed our plan and the Senate should make an up or down vote on Cut, Cap and Balance."
The feeling for tea party enthusiasts is that CCB was for show and the real action is in the negotiations over rolling another trillion or three onto the national debt with no meaningful spending reform. · Jul 27 at 12:53pm
Edited on Jul 27 at 12:55 pm
Very true. Boehner and the Republicans just need to stop presenting plans and put the spotlight on Obama or Democrats to come up with a plan that the GOP can then pick apart. There's no reason why Republicans should be on the hook for this when they only control one chamber of Congress.
Dec '10
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
Tea Partty Nation is just a faction that claims leadership over a group of individuals. They are not significant to me and they are not significant to the House leadership. Right now, the Tea Party can count perhaps 100 members in its caucus, which is not nearly enough to demand a leadership role.
CCB is fine with me and the House, but a difficult sell in the Senate. It is also a bit too complex to sell to the public. As any spending bill must originate in the House and CCB is difficult to explain to average voters in a manner that pushes past a biased media, a new plan from the House may be called for. But it ain't Boehner's new plan. There is a plan put forth by Connie Mack, and sponsored in the Senate by Rand Paul, that is interesting, because it should be an easier sell to the public. It's called the Penny Plan. This year's spending, minus a penny on every dollar. Each year thereafter, another 1% cut. It supposedly balances the budget in 6 years, then calls for the Balanced Budget Amendment in year 7 (and cuts $7 T).
Jul '11
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
A lot of us liked CCB (despite some intelligent conservative reservations about whether a BBA is really a good idea). But is it too demanding to be a plausible offer? Surely that's an important consideration. Dangerous precedent-setting aside, requiring Obama and Biden to resign as a condition of raising the debt ceiling might be welcome if it worked, but it would be overreaching and we all know it. We couldn't responsibly offer it as a condition, or even an opening bid. Bachmann's demand to repeal Obamacare in exchange for raising the debt ceiling falls into this category too, I think.
What of CCB then? The editors of National Review today say passing it would amount to liberals' signing a suicide pact. I agree with that (assuming the BBA with a spending cap of, say, 20% of GDP or lower would actually work). I think this is a little too close to the above two examples to be in the ballpark.
Boehner's plan, on the other hand, isn't. It isn't winning the war in one stroke. But it's a victory nonetheless. This is why I think Tea Party Nation is wrong.
Dec '10
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
BTW, the line against something like the Penny Plan is that it forces Medicare cuts. That's what Ryan has said, but it isn't true (and he knows that). He and Boehner will emphasize that 10,000 Boomers are retiring everyday, yadda-yadda, but that doesn't mean we go from 40 M to 80 M seniors in a year, while cutting Medicare 1%. The congress can keep Medicare constant, or increase it, as it sees fit, it just has to decrease the TOTAL number each year by 1% from what is obviously the most expensive year in history, with respect to federal spending. The cuts can come from anywhere, as long as they add up to 1%. This places the onus on the opposition each year, to explain why they cannot live with one penny less on the dollar.
I actually consider other plans, such as CCB, better. I just consider the Penny Plan to be most easily sold to the public.
Mar '11
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
At some point we need to declare victory and continue the fight without a quick deadline.
Obama wants taxes, an increase that extends beyond the election and has offered no actual cuts in spending while still talking about needed spending to win the future.
Boehner's plan does not give the President anything he wants while raising to debt ceiling. Any true cuts beyond that are icing on the cake. Make Obama fight his tax and spend agenda into the election. While making him almost irrelevant in debt talks
Mar '11
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
No.
"All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives" (Article 1 Section 7). If the White House and the Senate wish our monies then they must accede to the requirements of The People's House, the people are under no obligation to provide them our funds for their spendthrift ways.
Edited on Jul 27, 2011 at 2:35pmMay '10
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
All of the above are reasonable views under different circumstances. But remember- a whole bunch of TEA Party types are also opposed to CC&B (9 Republicans, including Michele Bachmann).
In other words, they are living in a dream world. When our spokespersons are so inept that Obama can repeatedly tell the "no SS checks for seniors" lie, and use corporate jets as exhibit A without being laughed out of town, we lack the horses for the present race.
And when both National Review and The Weekly Standard agree that, under the circumstances (e.g., control of only one house, partisan pro-tax media, presidential bully pulpit), the current Boehner plan is the best we can do, it is. Let the reluctant ones come to the well of the House and scream that they are doing this under protest, but for pete's sake, get this done and move on with killing ObamaCare.
Mar '11
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
I love CC&B, and Paul Ryan's budget, but I'm realistic enough to know that those are aspirational at the moment. We have to gain control of the Senate, and ideally the White House too before that sort of stuff can be signed into law. Something like those HAVE to eventually be passed, or we will be Greece in the next 10-15 years. Guaranteed. But they're not passing yet.
The main thing is not to get angry that we can't get this stuff passed now, it's to go work hard for folks like Ted Cruz (like I've already volunteered to do) or Adam Hasner or Josh Mandel, whoever's running against Claire McCaskell, or even Pete Hoekstra. We need more bodies, and this next election is the perfect opportunity, since there are so many Dems up in the Senate.
This last election should have taught my fellow Tea Partiers, we're not going to win every time, and quality matters. Work hard for good candidates, and through that we get change. And also, keep educating people about why they need to vote for fiscal conservatives.
Mar '11
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
The problem we have is that Boehner's plan is a political victory, but a fiscal defeat.
I don't want Republicans in power. I don't want to care about who is in power, because I want government out of my life.
So a Republican victory is only useful to me if it leads to fiscal/tax/regulatory victory. And I am not sure that this "victory" is more like to do any of those things than would simple default.
I say again: Let's default.
http://ricochet.com/member-feed/Maybe-Defaulting-would-not-be-so-terrible
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
Duane Oyen: All of the above are reasonable views under different circumstances. But remember- a whole bunch of TEA Party types are also opposed to CC&B (9 Republicans, including Michele Bachmann).
In other words, they are living in a dream world. When our spokespersons are so inept that Obama can repeatedly tell the "no SS checks for seniors" lie, and use corporate jets as exhibit A without being laughed out of town, we lack the horses for the present race.
And when both National Review and The Weekly Standard agree that, under the circumstances (e.g., control of only one house, partisan pro-tax media, presidential bully pulpit), the current Boehner plan is the best we can do, it is. Let the reluctant ones come to the well of the House and scream that they are doing this under protest, but for pete's sake, get this done and move on with killing ObamaCare. · Jul 27 at 2:13pm
Duane, you've convinced me--and as my posts demonstrate, I'm a hardliner on this.
Mar '11
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
iWc: The problem we have is that Boehner's plan is a political victory, but a fiscal defeat.
I don't want to care about who is in power, because I want government out of my life.
With only the House in republican control sweeping fiscal reform is not possible. Maybe just maybe Boehner brings a little fiscal control. But frankly the real battle at this point is the political victory.
If republican's lose the political/ image war on this, then Obama gets reelected and democrats gain more seats. Then you will never have government out of your life.
Continue to fight this issue and Obamacare with out a looming deadline. That gets more conservatives elected and allows us to build on what Boehner starts
Edited on Jul 27, 2011 at 2:43pmApr '11
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
This is the saddest part to me. With over 14 trillion in debt, Boehner's plan cuts the deficit only 1 billion in 2012, with the rest (a whopping 840 billion) spread 10 years. Maybe it's unrealistic to expect to eliminate Obamacare, pass a balanced budget amendment and slash trillions from the deficit with this battle, but it's depressing that would couldn't do better than 1 billion in 2012. We will never climb out of this hole if we can't do better. Something like 300 billion in 2012 would have satisfied conservatives that Washington is taking this problem seriously and there is more good stuff to come. Instead, I have lost hope that we can right this ship. One billion out of trillions. And all the center right outlets (NRO, Weekly Standard, Wall Street Journal, Ricochet) are saying we should declare it a victory and move on. What a mess.
May '10
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
I think we overestimated what was possible after 2010. Fact is, when Angle, O'Donnell, et. al. fell short, and Reid remained Majority Leader, I thought we were totally screwed. The fact is, there is going to be an agreement...and there will be no taxes raised.
This is a long war...the country has been hooked on fiscal heroin since 1933, and it's not going to get off cold turkey when so many are hooked on Federal dope. It's going to take some pretty bitter economic pills to keep us from being a jumbo sized cup of Greece (I fear we will get it before the next election)
It's time to reload, win in 2012, then CCB, Obamacare repeal, and all the other goodies are in sight. Hey, I love my Cardinals, but I can't pretend all their starting pitchers are C. C. Sabathia just because I want them to pitch like him. We must elect a stronger team in the Senate and fire the manager and replace him with Tony LaRussa. ;)
Dec '10
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
Keith Preston: I think we overestimated what was possible after 2010. Fact is, when Angle, O'Donnell, et. al. fell short, and Reid remained Majority Leader, I thought we were totally screwed. The fact is, there is going to be an agreement...and there will be no taxes raised.
This is a long war...the country has been hooked on fiscal heroin since 1933, and it's not going to get off cold turkey when so many are hooked on Federal dope. It's going to take some pretty bitter economic pills to keep us from being a jumbo sized cup of Greece (I fear we will get it before the next election)
It's time to reload, win in 2012, then CCB, Obamacare repeal, and all the other goodies are in sight. Hey, I love my Cardinals, but I can't pretend all their starting pitchers are C. C. Sabathia just because I want them to pitch like him. We must elect a stronger team in the Senate and fire the manager and replace him with Tony LaRussa. ;) · Jul 27 at 3:00pm
Bingo. We can promote this as Victory, then run with it to 2012.
May '10
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
Yes indeed to Dr. Savage, Duane Oyen, and Jager: let's win the Lexington and Concord skirmish, and keep pressing the fight against Obamacare long term. Prevailing in this particular struggle does not mean fixing the underlying problems any more than the colonists' victory in the skirmish at Lexington and Concord resulted in a British departure from the colonies.
We must get more fiscal conservatives elected to the other half of the legislature.
May '10
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
George Savage
Duane Oyen: ...And when both National Review and The Weekly Standard agree that, under the circumstances (e.g., control of only one house, partisan pro-tax media, presidential bully pulpit), the current Boehner plan is the best we can do, it is...
Duane, you've convinced me--and as my posts demonstrate, I'm a hardliner on this. · Jul 27 at 2:24pm
Color me unconvinced.
My favorite line from The Battle of Midway: "When you're in command, command."
My sense is that congressional leaders (good men, though they clearly are) lack the courage to exercise the full range of their powers in this crisis, because they dare not face the "uncharted territory" of allowing the debt ceiling to be reached.
They are implicitly committed to operating within the given Washington framework, wherein, e.g., reductions in the rate of growth are touted as "spending cuts."
This country can't be saved within that framework.
May '10
Re: Tea Party Nation: Boehner Must Go
Perhaps we need a "Doolittle Raid on Tokyo," then a Guadalcanal, before the 2012 elections can be a Midway campaign? And perhaps Boehner & caucus can bring about a "Doolittle Raid on Tokyo" kind of victory?
This does not minimize the Guadalcanal and the Solomon-esque campaigns (removing Obamacare, entitlement and tax reforms) that are coming up next, and those will be awful.
(And all analogies fall apart at some point, this one included...)