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December 21, 2012 05:54 PM UTC

John Boehner's "Plan B" Crashes and Burns

  • 118 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: FOX 31’s Eli Stokols answers one question:

Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, and Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, both planned to vote against Boehner’s “Plan B”, which was pulled from the floor Thursday night after Boehner failed to whip enough members of his divided GOP caucus in line…

According to talking points Lamborn gave his staff to pass on to constituents who bombarded the office with phone calls Thursday, the congressman “cannot support Plan B because it fails to give tax relief for one class of Americans.

“President Obama campaigned on a pledge to raise taxes, and Congressman Lamborn does not wish to assist him in raising taxes on any Americans,” the talking points continued. “Congressman Lamborn would like to see the Bush tax rates extended permanently for all Americans.”

Gardner, who is viewed as a rising star within the House GOP caucus but is closer to Majority Leader Eric Cantor than Boehner himself, “was not going to vote for it because it didn’t address spending at all,” according to spokeswoman Rachel George.

—–

Updating the fiscal cliff battle, Politico reports on yesterday’s dramatic failure in the House as Speaker John Boehner tried unsuccessfully to get the votes for his “Plan B” tax bill.

Things were so bad for Speaker John Boehner Thursday night, support for his Plan B tax bill so diminished, the limits of his power with his own party laid bare, that he stood in front of the House Republican Conference and recited the Serenity Prayer.

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

…It was supposed to be a moment of strength, a way to drag Obama and the Democrats toward them in the high-stakes fiscal cliff negotiations that have Washington teetering on the brink. Instead, it showed the world that either Boehner couldn’t bring 217 of his own members to his side, or they were unwilling to be led by him in this fight.

Yesterday’s failure by Speaker Boehner to pass his alternative measure significantly weakens his negotiating position. We haven’t heard whether any Colorado GOP representatives were part of the revolt; we expect that will come out soon enough. The House is reportedly on notice to be ready to head back to Washington, but this story indicates they may not reconvene before 2013–after the “fiscal cliff’s” mandatory spending cuts and tax increases have kicked in.

Rep. Mike Coffman had this to say to The Hill as the dust settled:

[A]fter a day and a half of intense lobbying on the part of the GOP leaders, rank-and-file members were stunned to learn that Boehner’s team was giving up the fight.

“I’ve never seen anything like it where leadership just completely backed down. I guess they made an assessment that the people who were no votes were entrenched no votes, because otherwise I think they would have just pulled it and they would have worked it longer,” Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman (R) told The Hill.

Coffman called the meeting “awful.” “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen leadership retreat. It was a real shock – the Speaker looked shocked,” he said.

It’s difficult to predict what’s going to happen next, but Boehner can only effectively negotiate as the leader of the House of Representatives if he has the power to lead. Otherwise it’s honestly not clear on whose behalf he is “negotiating.” Either way, Boehner’s leverage to continue demanding entitlement cuts opposed by the voting public in exchange for bringing his caucus along on a deal may have just evaporated. How many moderate Republicans would need to defect to a Democratic solution? It’s not that many, folks.

And Rep. Coffman’s remarks on yesterday’s failure to pass Boehner’s plan oblige us to consider whether speculation about Boehner’s speakership imploding is coming true.

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118 thoughts on “John Boehner’s “Plan B” Crashes and Burns”

  1. Fiscal cliff politics.

    Okay.  I don’t like what is going on in Washington..I think Boehner is the political equivalent of a cock teaser…..keeps skipping away from commitment at the last possible minute.  I think that one of two things is going on…

    1) He absolutely does not control his caucus and cannot get the votes for anything..

    by: dwyer @ Thu Dec 20, 2012 at 09:56:02 AM MST

    The problem now is that Boehner is in absolutely control of what happens next.  Any revenue bill MUST, constitutionally, start in the House.  As long as Boehner is Speaker, he controls what bills are voted on…..

  3. It’s the Republican Party!

    A new poll (sorry, didn’t catch which) finds that 52% of Americans find the Pubs “Too extreme.”  First time ever.

    Further, the same poll found that that is a SEVENTEEN POINT difference than two years ago!

    Suicide by extremism.

  4. come to Congressional reality:

    “The best planned lays of . . . ”

    And I do like the picture of Mike driving down I-25 by himself yelling, “Serenity! – Now!”

    (That Serenity Prayer thing is going to keep me laughing for days — so much more entertaining than Willard caterwauling America the Beautiful.)

  6. announce that since Boehner finds it impossible to negotiate with him that henceforth Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will be his contact in the House and she can negotiate with Boehner on behalf of the American people and the administration? I think it would be a hoot. She does seem to know how to talk with the House Rs

  7. http://andrewsullivan.thedaily…


    Between the humiliating and chaotic collapse of Speaker Boehner’s already ludicrously extreme Plan B and Wayne La Pierre’s deranged proposal to put government agents in schools with guns, the Republican slide into total epistemic closure and political marginalization has now become a free-fall. This party, not to mince words, is unfit for government. There is no conservative party in the West – except for minor anti-immigrant neo-fascist ones in Europe – anywhere close to this level of far right extremism. And now the damage these fanatics can do is not just to their own country – was the debt ceiling debacle of 2011 not enough for them? – but to to the entire world.

    There is more

  8. You write: “How many moderate Republicans would need to defect to a Democratic solution?”

    Who’s talking “defection” at this point? Boehner has basically admitted that he can’t control his own caucus and that any fiscal cliff solution has to come from the President and the Senate.

    Assuming that the President and Senate propose something, Boehner has boxed himself in to letting it go to a vote. And if it only gets a few moderate Republicans in the House, it’ll pass.

    I’m thinking $500,000 and up tax hikes, a little more spending cuts … Voila.

    But if Boehner pulls shenanigans to keep a proposal from getting a floor vote in the first place, he’ll easily be shown to be a liar.

  9. This is what I said:

    Boehner is in absolutely control of what happens next.

    Perhaps you all need some clarification.  Legislatively, on all revenue bills, specifically the ones that refer to the so-called “fiscal cliff,”  Boehner is in charge.  Nothing is initiated until or unless, he authorizes it.

    The ball is literally in his court.  That does NOT mean that he is in control of what the outcomes will be.  It means nothing happens, legislatively, until he says so.

    He has the power to initiate.  No one else does, not FOX News, not all the talking heads on MSNBC, not the President, not Harry Reid, not anyone, except Boehner.

  10. Jesus, this train wreck from SC is the very personification of the standard pinko Congressional Rep. that blew in with the teabag dolt tidal wave in ’10.

    All kidding aside, this knucklehead was unaware that the “debt ceiling” addresses paying for legislation ALREADY PASSED.

    How does a sitting Congressman not know what the debt ceiling is?

    Are you kidding me?

    Electing redlegs to any political office is kind of like……….no, it’s exactly like hiring someone who knows nothing about engines as your car mechanic.

    I’ve never seen anything like this.    

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