Tag Archives: John Boehner

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Look out if GOP captures Senate majority

U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., thinks the Republicans will gain control of the Senate when the votes are counted in the 2014 mid-term election.

Of course he’d say that. He wants nothing more, except perhaps to be speaker of the House whenever John Boehner, R-Ohio, decides to call it a career.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/02/24/rep_cantor_republicans_will_take_the_senate.html

My own thought simply is that Republicans had better get ready for the fight of their lives if they govern both houses of Congress.

It’s been a knock-down, drag-out bloodbath during the first term-plus of Barack Obama’s presidency. The GOP-controlled House has managed to stymie the president’s agenda at almost every turn. Senate Republicans had done a good job of blocking appointments to key judicial posts until Democrats decided to change the rules to make it easier to circumvent filibusters.

The atmosphere in Washington has gotten quite toxic since President Obama took office.

If you think it’s been bad so far, then the final two years of the Obama presidency will require gas masks.

If Cantor’s prediction comes true, then the Senate will be able to block virtually every appointment the president hopes to make. The Supreme Court? None of the justices is going to leave the high court voluntarily.

The fights over budget issues only will intensify. The majority in the House will feel emboldened to throw up even more roadblocks. With the GOP in control in the Senate, if Cantor’s dream comes true, there will be no way for the upper chamber to act as a counterbalance.

What will the White House do? Look for the president to examine every possible legal action he can take through executive authority. He still has the power of his high office.

You know the saying about “being careful what you wish for.” Republicans want badly to control all of Capitol Hill, not just half of it.

If you thought the fighting was bitter to this point, well, just wait. It’s going to get downright bloody — and this is not how government is supposed to work.

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Minimum wage hike not really a killer

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner is on record as saying he’d rather kill himself than vote for an increase in the federal minimum wage.

Now that he’s gotten that off his chest, I surely hope he was just being melodramatic, trying to make some rhetorical point.

However, now the issue ought to turn to whether the House should vote on it. I say, “Why not?”

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/198856-boehner-id-rather-kill-myself-than-raise-the-minimum-wage

At issue is a proposal to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. President Obama wants it, as do congressional Democrats. So might a majority of congressional Republicans. Polling indicates most rank-and-file Americans support an increase from the current rate of $7.25 per hour.

Who’s opposed to it? As my late mother would say, I’ll give you three guesses — but the first two don’t count.

It’s the tea party cabal within the Republican Party congressional caucus, the individuals who have whipsawed Boehner and other establishment Republicans into backing much of their agenda.

Boehner isn’t likely to allow a vote to increase the minimum wage because he’s been buffaloed.

Therein lies the question of leadership. Is the speaker the Man of the House or isn’t he?

As speaker, he isn’t beholden just to a minority within his own caucus. He ought to be looking out for the interests of the entire body, all 435 members — and that includes Democrats as well as Republicans.

I’m not necessarily arguing here for a “clean” minimum wage bill, one that doesn’t have some sweeteners, such as spending cuts or tax breaks. Indeed, White House brass and congressional Democrats ought to be stop digging in their heels by insisting on a clean bill.

What’s more, economic data differ on whether a minimum wage increase is going to cause mass layoffs because employers cannot afford to pay employee wages.

I do know, though, that families cannot rely on minimum-wage income to sustain themselves. They need a boost.

So, Mr. Speaker, allow a vote. It won’t kill you.

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Bully for Boehner on debt ceiling vote

Hell hasn’t exactly frozen over — even with the cold spell that’s chilled so much of the country.

But the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is talking sense now about how to proceed with a vote on whether to increase the nation’s borrowing limit.

John Boehner, R-Ohio, plans to bring a “clean” bill to the floor of the House without strings attached to increase the nation’s debt limit.

Earlier plans had called for a vote but only if it was linked to reductions in military pensions, which House Republicans want reversed. The plan has now given way to a clean vote, which Boehner acknowledges will make some GOP members unhappy.

The debt ceiling needs to be increased so the government can pay its bills. There need not be threats of default or stalemates or gridlock or continuing quarrels over something that Republicans and Democrats historically have agreed needed to be done.

Boehner sought concessions from congressional Democrats and the White House. “As I said before, this is a lost opportunity. We could have sat down and worked together in a bipartisan manner to find cuts and reforms that are greater than increasing the debt limit,” Boehner told The New York Times. “I am disappointed, to say the least.”

Congress and the White House can move forward on the other issues separately from the debt ceiling.

Meanwhile, if both congressional chambers approve increasing the borrowing limits without another donnybrook, the nation will have saved itself from another potential crisis.

How can that be a bad thing?

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GOP differs on immigration? Imagine that

This is about the least-surprising political news of the week: Congressional Republicans meeting this week at an annual retreat are displaying sharp differences over how, or even whether, to move ahead with immigration reform.

Here’s a word to the wise: Do it for the sake of your party’s survival, if not for the sake of millions of de facto Americans who have been living in the shadows, many of them since they were children brought here illegally by their parents.

House GOP split over forging ahead on immigration this year

House Speaker John Boehner is beginning to make sense these days and is pushing back against the hard-line tea party wing of his GOP House caucus. He wants to reform the nation’s immigration policies, which already have been approved in the Senate, but have been stalled in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

Others within his caucus want to move immigration forward as well, but as usual they’re being stymied by the radical right wing that believes giving a “pathway to citizenship” for undocumented immigrants is tantamount to granting amnesty to lawbreakers.

These clowns ought to listen to the likes of border state governors, such as, say, Republican Rick Perry of Texas. He’s as conservative as most of the tea party wing in the House, but he understands better than they do that those who are brought here as children, have grown as Americans and know the United States as their country deserve a chance to work their way toward citizenship.

I’m hoping the speaker will continue to push back against the wacko wing of his House caucus. Immigration reform is a must for the nation. Whether it helps the Republicans is of little concern to me. I just want to bring 11 million American residents out of the shadows.

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Smoking a disqualifier for presidential candidates

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner is nothing if not candid.

He told Jay Leno this week that he likes smoking cigarettes too much to be president of the United States. He won’t quit the nasty habit. So there, he said. He ain’t going to run for president.

John Boehner Likes Smoking Too Much to Be President

I’m glad that smoking is now seen as a deal-breaker for anyone who wants to run for the highest office in the land. Think of it. The president has a Presidential Council on Fitness; he names a director to run the organization. Smoking is a key component in the message the office delivers, which is to say that children shouldn’t smoke, because the habit can kill you.

The current president used to smoke but has quit — he says. No one has yet confirmed it independently, at least I’m not aware of any confirmation. Even so, no one ever would see Barack Obama lighting up.

It didn’t used to be this way. President Franklin Roosevelt famously smoked cigarettes with that cigarette holder cocked in that famously “jaunty” angle. President John Kennedy was known to light up a stogie in the Oval Office while pondering the issues of the day. President Richard Nixon didn’t smoke, but first lady Pat Nixon did — although no one ever saw her in public; same thing was said of Jackie Kennedy, come to think of it.

President Bill Clinton? Hmmm. How do we handle this one? I guess he smoked cigars, but as we learned to our national disgrace, he did other things with them that didn’t require them to be lit.

Speaker Boehner declaration takes one national politician out of the hunt for the presidency in 2016. Other issues may derail potential candidates. I’ll give the speaker credit, though, for his forthrightness on a disgusting habit that in this day and time has no place in the Oval Office.

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Podesta gets off to rocky White House start

Well, that was a bit of a stumble for the new guy in the White House.

John Podesta, former White House chief of staff during the Clinton administration, has taken on a new role as special adviser to President Obama. OK, so far.

Then we hear about an interview he did some time back in which he compared congressional Republicans to the Jonestown, Guyana cult led by the maniac Jim Jones, the one ended with the mass suicide of more than 900 men, women and children.

Podesta said this right about the time the president was ready to commence his second term: “They need to focus on executive action given that they are facing a second term against a cult worthy of Jonestown in charge of one of the houses of Congress,” Podesta told Politico Magazine.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/193524-podesta-apologizes-for-gop-jonestown-cult-comparison

Bad call, Mr. Podesta.

He has apologized to House Speaker John Boehner, someone Podesta said he has long “respected.”

Podesta is supposed to one of the grownups who work in the West Wing. I reckon he’ll get his big boy persona into gear soon as he provides special advice and counsel to the rest of the Obama White House team.

However, given the hard feelings that linger between the White House and congressional Republicans, I’m quite sure many in the GOP aren’t going to accept the apology and just move on.

Too bad.

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Boehner showing some spine … finally

I’ll admit that Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner’s sudden display of steel is quite becoming.

It’s nice to have so many of your House colleagues on board with a plan so that you can say what you really think — at least I hope it’s what he really thinks — of the ultra-conservative interest groups that have taken your Republican caucus hostage for the past three years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/12/13/john-boehner-back-on-top/

The House approved this week by a 332-94 margin a budget deal brokered by a committee chaired by tea party darling Rep. Paul Ryan and his Democratic Senate colleague Patty Murray. A few hardliners held out against the deal, which heads off a government shutdown, strikes down much of the mandated budget cuts created by sequestration and cuts the deficit a little bit over the next decade.

One guy who I feared might vote “no,” my own congressman Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, actually voted in favor of the deal. His West Texas colleague, Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, stuck with his do-nothing approach to government and cast a negative vote. I am not surprised Neugebauer wouldn’t sign on; after all, he was the guy who scolded a National Park Service employee for doing her job — at Congress’s orders — when she refused to let tourists into the World War II Memorial in D.C. during the government shutdown in October.

Boehner now has taken the gloves off, more or less, in calling out folks like the Club for Growth and Heritage Action, who oppose any deal that results from compromising with Democrats. He says they’ve “lost credibility.”

I’m kind of hoping that Boehner, who I believe at heart is a decent guy with good-government instincts, finally is realizing that as the Man of the House he has the power to get things done and that he doesn’t need to buckle under to the pressure brought by factions within his party.

As the Washington Post notes, he has clawed his way back on top “for now.”

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Immigration reform gets big boost

The overwhelming approval this week of the bipartisan budget deal signals a big win for U.S. House Speaker John Boehner.

The question now becomes whether he is feeling his Wheaties enough to push through some other legislation that needs to be enacted — such as immigration reform.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/193034-does-boehner-victory-pave-the-way-for-immigration

The 332-94 House vote approving a budget deal that forestalls a government shutdown has been described as Boehner’s win over the tea party wing of his Republican Party. The tea party clowns also have been yammering against any effort to reform the nation’s immigration laws.

Boehner, until right about now, has been listening to the tea party crowd and saying things like the House won’t act on immigration this year, or maybe even next year. The budget victory now sends other signals that Boehner — who many believe wants to do an immigration deal — might be willing to step on a few more tea party toes.

Go for it, Mr. Speaker.

The nation needs desperately to give the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants living here a chance to come out of the shadows. Do they deserve a complete amnesty? No. They do deserve a chance to become citizens if that’s their desire. President Obama wants to enable those who were brought here as young children a chance to wipe the slate clean, given that they’ve grown up as Americans and know nothing other than life in this country.

The president has an unlikely ally in that effort in the form of GOP Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who also happens to be a tea party darling and who might run for president himself in 2016. Perry, though, governs a state with a large illegal immigrant population and he understands the complexities of the issue and knows how hard it is to round ’em all up and send ’em back the country of their birth.

So, I’m hoping Boehner can decide that the tea party wing of his party isn’t quite so fearsome and he can move immigration reform through the House of Representatives. If nothing else, he can help head off the designation that this Congress has earned for being so unproductive.

No one wants the “do-nothing” label hung around their neck, correct Mr. Speaker?

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Yep, another federal budget deadline looms

Happy Monday, everyone. Welcome to the latest Week When All Hell Might Break Loose.

Here’s the good news: The work week ends on Friday the 13th, which is the day U.S. House and Senate budget negotiators are supposed to produce a budget deal that forestalls another government shutdown.

Any takers on whether they get it done?

Well, here we are yet again. We’ve been through one of these government shutdowns already. It lasted 16 days and Republicans took the big hickey on that deal. The “crisis” ended when all the parties agreed to convene a conference committee chaired by two serious lawmakers — Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin — to hammer out a new budget deal.

The stakes are big. Absent a budget deal, the government could shut down once more. We hear now about a major sticking point: whether to extend unemployment insurance for long-term jobless Americans. President Obama wants to extend the benefit; his “friends” on the Republican side in Congress, naturally, oppose it.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20131207/DAAHG0F83.html

House Speaker John Boehner is actually making sense, suggesting Republicans could support an extension.

My guess is that the GOP has another — more pragmatic — reason to avoid a shutdown. It involves the Affordable Care Act.

You see, Democrats have lost their political edge over the ACA rollout. All that advantage they had over Republicans because of the shutdown dissipated when the ACA debut crashed and burned because of that faulty website. It gave Republicans loads of fresh meat to gnaw on. They’re still chewing on it and inflicting as much damage as possible on Democrats.

Do Republicans want to surrender that advantage? I don’t think so.

Therefore, I’m almost ready to suggest that the Murray- and Ryan-led committee just might cobble together a budget deal that heads off a government shutdown.

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Bring Senate debt plan to vote, Mr. Speaker

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner has been hiding something called the Hastert Rule, named after former Speaker Dennis Hastert, one of Boehner’s predecessors.

The Hastert Rule means that nothing goes to a vote if it doesn’t first have the support of most members of the party that runs the House of Representatives.

The time is at hand for Boehner to throw the Hastert Rule in the trash bin. The U.S. Senate very well could present the House with a plan to extend the nation’s debt ceiling and reopen the part of the government that’s been shut down for two weeks.

Both of these things likely would be short-term repairs. They would, however, stave off the first default on our obligations in American history. If that occurs at midnight, world financial markets could collapse, the U.S. credit rating would plummet and a new recession could occur, causing significant pain and misery for millions of Americans.

Boehner has been shackled to the will of about 30 or so members of his Republican caucus who want to attach certain conditions on the debt ceiling increase and reopening the government. It’s time he showed some guts.

It’s a fairly open secret that most members of the entire House want this debacle to end. The speaker, I hasten to add, is the man in charge of the entire legislative chamber. His “constituents,” such as they are, do not comprise merely the Republican majority. Depending on who’s doing the counting, Democrats are virtually united in their support of Senate efforts to end this madness. Add their numbers to the substantial number of Republicans who also want it to end, and I’m pretty sure you come up with far more than 218 House members, which is the minimum number of votes needed to approve a deal.

So, what’s it going to be, Mr. Speaker? Are you going to allow this catastrophe to occur or are you going to exercise the enormous power you have by virtue of your high office to get something done?