John Boehner’s only choice: Throw the Tea Party overboard

[kpete]

The Plum Line

John Boehner’s only choice: Throw the Tea Party overboard
BY GREG SARGENT
October 13 at 10:15 am

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What’s really telling, though, is that House Republicans are furious at this emerging plan, explicitly because they think it requires them to give up the debt ceiling as leverage to force major Dem concessions on Obamacare. Buried in the Post’s account is this important anecdote describing Paul Ryan’s reaction to the Collins plan:

Some rank-and-file Republicans grew visibly excited about the prospect of opposing such a deal, said one person in the room. This defiance was fed by Ryan, who stood up and railed against the Collins proposal, saying the House could not accept either a debt-limit bill or a government-funding measure that would delay the next fight until the new year.

According to two Republicans familiar with the exchange, Ryan argued that the House would need those deadlines as “leverage” for delaying the health-care law’s individual mandate and adding a “conscience clause” — allowing employers and insurers to opt out of birth-control coverage if they find it objectionable on moral or religious grounds — and mentioned tax and entitlement goals Ryan had focused on in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

Ryan’s speech appeared only to further rile up the conservative wing of the GOP conference, which has been agitating the shutdown strategy to try to tear apart the health-care law.

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If this is accurate, then the widespread portrayal of Ryan as offering a reasonable way out of this mess (remember, his WSJ Op ed piece seemed to back away from demanding concessions on Obamacare) is utter B.S. There are two things that are flatly unacceptable to Democrats under any circumstances. The first is the prospect of Republicans using the threat of widespread harm to the country — whether through a government shutdown or through default and economic havoc – as leverage to extract unrelated policy concessions. The Dem view is that not only will this force Dems to make unilateral concessions; it will also legitimize use of the default threat as a conventional negotiating tactic, only ensuring this will happen again, making default more likely later, particularly in 2014, when House Republicans face reelection and primary challenges. The second thing that is non-negotiable for Dems is anything that fundamentally undermines Obamacare.


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There is no compromise that would prove acceptable to both Tea Party Republicans on one side and Obama and Senate Democrats on the other. The entire Tea Party crusade has been premised on the idea that the Dem refusal to unwind Obamacare could be broken if Republicans held firm on the government shutdown long enough, because it was only a matter of time until the American people, under duress and gripped with a feverish hatred of the health care law, rise up and force Dems to capitulate. Neither of those has happened. The American people have reached the opposite conclusion — they blame Republicans for the government shutdown, and don’t want such tactics wielded as a weapon against Obamacare — and Obama and Dems have demonstrated they will not capitulate.


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It now seems plainly obvious that neither Tea Party Republicans on one side, nor Obama and Senate Dems on the other, will give any ground on what they view as non-negotiable. No deal that is even marginally acceptable to both of those groups is feasible. Democrats are not capitulating to Tea Party demands; it just isn’t happening. By definition, then, there is only one way out of the crisis: Through an alliance of non-Tea Party Republicans (who have already shown a willingness to reopen the government) and Democrats. This would require House GOP leaders to allow a vote on something that is unacceptable to Tea Party conservatives, which will make them really, really angry, and to suffer the consequences.


the rest:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/10/13/john-boehners-only-choice-throw-the-tea-party-overboard/

[gopiscrap]

1. I agree but he should have done that long ago

[spanone]

2. john boehner IS the teaparty.

[HooptieWagon]

3. No, they just pull his strings.

Theres already a tea party backed candidate filed to primary him.

[AlinPA]

4. Agree. He is now a full-fledged teabagger and is doing what he thinks is right for the teabagger

agenda. When I listen to him, he sounds the same as Louie Gohmert, Michelle Bachman and the rest of the loonies.

[spanone]

5. once you allow and promote their agenda, you are a member.

[iemitsu]

6. Too late. Boehner has already given the reigns of

House power to Eric Cantor, who salivates at the prospect of hurting little people.
Some mechanism has to be available to trump this attempted coup, by House Republicans. I am not sure what sort of tactic will be used but closing the government is a vote to collapse the country, not unlike the Soviets voting themselves out of existence.
I can't see any elites letting this happen, since the system works well to support the leaches at the.

[1000words]

7. Boehner is done ... following Newt's footsteps.

GOP will throw the Tea Party under the bus. Their whole purpose from the start was to be used as cover.

[libdem4life]

9. This is true...but the timing no matter what the agreement ends up to be really sucks.

[libdem4life]

8. A Christmas Carol...the TP Scroogian intent to hold the Thanksgiving Turkey and Santa Claus

as hostages, is even more egregious. What's "better" than millions of people not working or getting paid or going without year end bonuses and the economy diving? The enabling cable news will hit a bonanza featuring veterans, poor folks and children crying when they can't can't afford to travel, buy holiday foods, or godhelpus, Christmas presents. Hostage-taking at its most cynical. (Blame the Democrats, of course)

This is even more than financial...it clutches at the depth of our cultural and social mores...how we, as humans, celebrate our existence and annually, for a time at least, put our better natures in front of our differences and divides ... most especially at the "Holy Days"...aka holidays.

Charles Dickens nailed the Scroogian Tea Party. Perhaps this story/message is what we could be sending our representatives and let them determine which role in this classic story of human nature they represent? (short version at link)

"A mean-spirited, miserly old man named Ebenezer Scrooge sits in his counting-house on a frigid Christmas Eve. His clerk, Bob Cratchit, shivers in the anteroom because Scrooge refuses to spend money on heating coals for a fire. Scrooge's nephew, Fred, pays his uncle a visit and invites him to his annual Christmas party. Two portly gentlemen also drop by and ask Scrooge for a contribution to their charity. Scrooge reacts to the holiday visitors with bitterness and venom, spitting out an angry "Bah! Humbug!" in response to his nephew's "Merry Christmas!"

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/christmascarol/summary.html