I want to share some quotes from the New York Times Editorial Board's scathing analysis of our latest budget crisis and the way John Boehner, instead of leading, is being lead by the far right members of his caucus. (My comments appear indented and in italics.)
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"On Wednesday...the full Republican caucus, leadership and all, joined the anarchy movement, announcing plans to demand the defunding of health care reform as the price for keeping the government open past Sept. 30."
The House has tried to defund the ACA 41 times--each time knowing that the Senate was not even going to consider it. And now, only days from the scheduled opening of ACA insurance marketplaces, they have come up with a "final offer"--defund the ACA and they'll agree to fund the government through December. (No mention of what they'll want in order to continue government funding in January.)"By choosing this as their live-or-die issue, Republicans are driving straight toward the brink and removing the brake pedal.
What is worse, the House leadership also announced plans to make a series of demands of the White House in exchange for raising the debt ceiling in mid-October, threatening a government default if they don't get their way."
Their demands read like a list of everything they wanted but didn't get over the past five years, including, of course, defunding the ACA, the immediate approval of the Keystone pipeline and changes to our tax code that will benefit corporations and those wealthy enough to profit from them."As a strategy, the House plan makes little sense. After the House takes its vote this week...the measure will go to the Senate...The Senate will almost certainly approve the resolution minus the defunding language, sending the bill right back to the House. Nothing will have changed, except that there will be only a day or two left before the government's financing runs out.
As a political statement, this plan illuminates the chaotic state of the Republican Party. Speaker John Boehner (has) lost control of his chamber to hard-liners obsessed with repealing (the ACA.) Many on the right, who came to Washington with the radical agenda of ending as many government programs as they could, practically welcome the prospect of a shutdown or even a default."
Their tactics will not work, but they don't really care. It's not about what's best for the country to them. Its about feeding their own egos, about their insatiable need to prove themselves better than those who came before them. It's about beating their own puffed up conservative breasts and screaming into the wind "I'm King of the Hill!" Teenagers go through growing pains just like these where they believe all parents are stupid. Most of them grown out of it. Those who don't, apparently become Republican politicians."Mr. Boehner is playing the dangerous game of trying to placate the extremists for a few days."
He is also trying to protect his own butt. Tea Party members of the House have made it clear that, if he doesn't go along with their agenda, there will be a new Speaker after the 2014 elections."But, in the end, the burden will be squarely on his shoulders. If he allows the entire House, including Democrats, to vote on straight forward measures to pay for the government and raise the debt limit, the double crisis will instantly end. "
This is a point that keeps getting shoved under the rug. Mr. Boehner's "leadership" style has been to refuse to offer any measure up for a vote unless it will pass with Republican votes alone. He knows that all it would take to pass a temporary budget measure--one that would not require the defunding of the ACA--is for a few moderate Republicans to switch sides and vote with House Democrats; and so he refuses to allow such a vote to take place. And then, next month, allowing a vote to raise the debt ceiling without first assuring that the majority of Republicans are on board would eliminate that looming debt ceiling crisis in the same way and without all the theatrics of last minute midnight sessions we've been treated to in the recent past.
Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) was asked what he thought the House would do when the Senate rejects their ACA defunding plan as it is sure to do. "Even the best coaches in the NFL only script out the first two series of play. They don't script the whole game. We have got to play the game. We have got to see how it all shakes out."
If these selfish, ego driven juveniles want to think of the "Art of Governing" as a "game", would it be too much to ask that no one be permitted to play until they've reached the age of reason?
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