How Eric Cantor Gave Us an Endless Series of Fiscal Crises

[deminks]

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/02/how-eric-cantor-gave-us-endless-series-fiscal-crises/62480/

The person who deserves the most blame for the sequester -- the automatic spending cuts that kick in March 1 and will slow GDP growth by 0.5 percent -- is not President Obama or John Boehner, but House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. That's not just because the Virginia Republican wanted to delay a big deficit bill until after the election, when he thought he'd be working with President-elect Mitt Romney, but because Cantor can't decide whether the best course for his own career is to side with Boehner and more moderate Republicans or with the Tea Party radicals. The careening of his thinking on the question is the backbeat of one fiscal crisis after another, The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza reports.

Cantor comes across as very ambitious in Lizza's profile -- his staff even say he could be president someday. But Cantor doesn't seem to know how to achieve his career goals. He can't decide whether to help Boehner negotiate with the White House to pass actual legislation or to undercut Boehner to get conservatives' support. In the summer of 2011, Boehner had been negotiating with Obama on a grand bargain to raise the debt ceiling and reduce the deficit. Cantor helped kill it.

(snip)

Republican leadership, including Cantor, is not popular in the House. Frustrated House committee chairmen are trying to take back some power, The Washington Post's Paul Kane reported earlier this month. "Tired of watching as flailing leadership negotiations fail to produce any key legislation, these senior lawmakers hope that a return to the old days of subcommittee hearings and bill markups, floor amendments and conference reports may offer a path forward on everything from immigration to a long-term budget plan," Kane writes. Cantor is also not popular in his home state -- his favorable rating in Virginia is 27 percent. And he's not popular nationally, either. Lizza reports Cantor knows "his own unpopularity has become an impediment to the Republican cause."

(end snip)

[Gorp]

1. Cantor is the slime that accumulates in sewer pipes after decades of use.