GOP House divided against itself?

[_MeDotOrg]

This evening John Boehner could not muster the necessary votes to pass the 'Plan B' alternative to Obama's budget proposal. Some sources report that conservative members of the Republican Caucus would not accept the tax increase for Americans making over one million dollars. Not that many, but enough to kill the bill.

So the fiscal cliff negotiations are being thwarted by hard-line conservative minority of the GOP that refuses any compromise on tax increases.

This is not good news for the GOP, or the country. If Boehner cannot even get the members of his party to agree on a counter-offer, how can he be viewed as a legitimate negotiator?

Boehner may not be the next Speaker, but that is a moot point. Before the next vote for Speaker stands the fiscal cliff. If the GOP cannot propose a counter-offer but still votes to oppose the President's plan, the party will be seen as thwarting any sort of reasonable compromise.

Will Boehner somehow get the troops in line before the end of the year? I'm not sure that it even matters, as Boehner's plan can realistically only be seen as a beginning negotiating position. If he can't get the conservatives of his party to line up behind that, what's his next move? To move further to the right to unify his party? I don't think that would be perceived as being in the spirit of compromise.

The divisions between the more pragmatic centrist Republicans and the more idealist conservative element (see how nice I'm being?) are beginning to spit the Party in a seriously self-destructive way, which is not a good thing for the party or the country. If the fiscal cliff weren't looming, the GOP would have more time for an election post-mortem and the resolution of their differences.

But they don't have more time.

[_bcspace]

The rejection of Boehner's plan, actually Pelosi's plan which she admitted was a ploy, works IF the Republicans stop adopting the Democrat's language; couching it in "tax the rich". Conservatives should frame it as "controlling reckless government by not funding it". If not, the Pelosi plan, which Boehner called her bluff on, was the right way to go strategically. The Senate Democrats would never vote for it and Obama already pledged to veto it.

The bottom line is no one should agree to any additional spending or taxation. Better yet, stop defending pet programs and allocate the available 1.5 trillion that actually comes in to the main groups (military, infrastructure, research, social) and let the programs fall where they may based on how much each of those groups gets. It should be noted that it's been proven we could cut social spending by one or even two thirds and still get the same benefit.

[_beastie]

I don't know what's going to happen.

I do understand WHY this happened, though. All you have to do to understand the position Boehner has been in is read bcspace's and droopy's posts. The Koch brothers and others of their ilk - the richest of the rich who not only don't want to pay more taxes no matter how little it affects their lives as well as don't want regulations that may affect their businesses - have successfully mobilized and manipulated ideologues who are easily misinformed and energized. They, in turn, have manipulated and controlled the republican party through the fear of being "primaried". These ideologues don't understand what it means to govern and compromise. They don't seem to understand or care about the consequences of their refusal to govern. Look at the debt ceiling fiasco. Our credit rating was downgraded and Standard and Poor's explained this was due to the debt ceiling fiasco. The debt ceiling is simply the agreement to pay debts that Congress has already approved. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling is like buying a bunch of stuff on your credit card and then when the bill comes due, declaring "I'm going to get control of my spending by refusing to pay this bill!" Yet Boehner still threatens to use this tactic, despite KNOWING what it is and means. That means he's controlled by ideologues like droopy and bcspace who think refusing to raise the debt ceiling means something other than refusing to pay bills we've already incurred, hence damaging our credit rating and eventually our interest rates. And droopy and bcspace are controlled by people like the Koch brothers. It's insane.

I think the republican party is going to split into two. At least I maintain hope that is what will happen, and the cranks can go off and form their own party and let the republican party heal and learn to govern again.

[Tator]

I love Morning Joe on MSNBC because it has a balance of views. Joe Scarborough made some very astute statements on today's program regarding this issue.

Background:

Craig Shirley’s statement:
“If this was a parliamentary system, tonight’s dissent on Plan B would be seen as a vote of no confidence in Boehner….the national GOP is now simply a collection of warring tribal factions.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ ... ory_1.html

CNN poll shows that 53% of Americans now think the GOP is too extreme.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... o-extreme/

Joe Scarborough had this to say in response to these two items (on Morning Joe, Dec. 21)

I want my Republican brothers and sisters who have taken exception to some of the things I’ve said this past year about us going in the wrong direction as a party, offending swing voters, offending the middle class, I want you to look at those numbers and just breathe them in. Think back over the primary process that I said was going to be destructive to our party, think back over the convention, think back over the contraception debate, all of these things I kept bringing up that kept enraging you, I want you to keep staring at those numbers, I could show you twenty more numbers that show what a sorry state the republican party is in. Craig Shirley is right, we are little more than a tribe of warring factions…

This week, after the most horrific act, I think, in recent American history, other than 9/11, I can’t think of anything that has scarred the soul of Americans more than what happened at Sandy Hook. You’ve had complete, utter silence from the Republican leaders on some of these key issues. There are Americans out there who are thinking, “ok, is this the party of lower taxes, or is this the party of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and clips? Is this the party of balanced budgets, or is this the party of contraception wars, going back to the primary process. This party has painted itself into an extreme corner by going down all these various rabbit trails that have nothing to do with the core of who we are as a party of small government, and again I want to put these numbers up one more time, again, the CNN numbers, on the eve of the disastrous plan B vote, I can’t think of any time the republican party, my republican party, has been in such disarray since 1974, after Richard Nixon resigned. What does it all mean?

[_honorentheos]

Nice post, beastie. Thanks for sharing the quote!

Look at the debt ceiling fiasco. Our credit rating was downgraded and Standard and Poor's explained this was due to the debt ceiling fiasco. The debt ceiling is simply the agreement to pay debts that Congress has already approved. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling is like buying a bunch of stuff on your credit card and then when the bill comes due, declaring "I'm going to get control of my spending by refusing to pay this bill!" Yet Boehner still threatens to use this tactic, despite KNOWING what it is and means.

I hope we remember, because round 2 is coming up sooner than we seem to realize: February 2013 - The Real End of the World

I'm pretty sure Plan B was partially designed to give the House Republican's a little more leverage on the debt ceiling debate where the tables are turned from the fiscal cliff debate. My understanding is that the democrats want the extension to be part of the grand bargain. If we fail on resolving the fiscal cliff issue and Sequestration is enacted, taxes go up and the base line changes from which to negotiate. We fail to increase the debt ceiling before the February deadline....