BREAKING: Boehner WILL NOT bring up "Plan B": not enough votes...

[brooklynite]

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) this evening issued the following statement:

"The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass. Now it is up to the president to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff. The House has already passed legislation to stop all of the January 1 tax rate increases and replace the sequester with responsible spending cuts that will begin to address our nation's crippling debt. The Senate must now act."

[cali]

1. what a fucking disaster for that fuck. good.

[xxxsdesdexxx]

2. Hahaha. Didn't Cantor say they had the votes.

[bpositive]

3. Total fail

[democrattotheend]

4. Good news, I think?

At the very least, a pretty big embarrassment for Boehner. And it gives the president leverage not to give anything else and to use his formula if they do chained CPI. And the GOP will get the blame if we go over the cliff, although I still hope they can avoid that because contrary to what some people think, going over will hurt the economy and cause a lot of pain for a lot of people.

[julian09]

9. If he can't get votes for one million cutoff, he sure won't get them for $400,000 cut off.

He should vote on bill already passed in senate, to continue tax cuts on those earning up to $250,000.

[spanone]

5. they'll spend the night twisting arms, we'll see what they get

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. They passed the spending cuts, that cut food stamps and the child tax credit

But they couldn't get the votes to raise the tax rate for over $1,000,000!

Great optics, there, Boehner!

[Shilo]

7. LOL

[jrobbi]

8. And you guys were worried that Obama was giving up too much.

I had a feeling the GOP didn't have enough votes to pass this bill. Obama looks reasonable and the GOP looks like morons, Obama now controls the negotiations he could even end up pulling the chained cpi off the table. (Which now I agree he should since the GOP will get criticized from the left, right, and center over the next 5 days)

[julian09]

10. I think Obama's $400,000 and cpi, offer is still on table and could tweek it, but

I doubt they take that because they are opposed to tax increase starting at $1 million, let alone $400,000.
Then, if they go over cliff they lose it all goes to first dollar @ 39.6%

[forestpath]

12. It is not "reasonable" to scare seniors for nothing. I do not trust Obama to not offer up SS again.

[reformist2]

11. He just punted. Game over.

[underpants]

13. The internal Republican war (much ignored by the media) just began

This is really no surprise. Boehner has repeatedly made deals that fell flat when the TeaBaggers/talk radio faves/poo-flingers have rejected what he has negotiated. This has happened numerious times since just 2010.

The Republicans are usually beholden to their male leader but now all bets are off. Cantor looks like a complete ass because he failed to do his job and thought that he could Fox News his side into believing "what some people (Cantor) say".

They didn't even have 5 or 7 cards in their hand before they started playing. Tonight was a debacle.

Merry Christmas President Obama - you just got the greatest gift of all time.....the opposition in complete disarray.