Speaker John Boehner emerged from his weekly huddle with House Republicans on Wednesday morning to take his place behind a mahogany lectern in front of a brown backdrop. The dark tones provided ideal camouflage for the deeply tanned speaker — as though he were trying to vanish into the background.
Who could blame him?
Right now, he is hoping to lead his fractious GOP to an orderly surrender. The question is no longer whether Republicans will give on taxes; they already have. All that remains to be negotiated is how they will increase taxes, and whether they will do it before or after the government reaches the “fiscal cliff.”
“I believe that it’s appropriate to put revenues on the table,” Boehner told reporters. “Now, the revenues we’re putting on the table are going to come from — guess who? — the rich.”
Socialist! Redistributionist! Spreader of wealth!
One of Boehner’s lieutenants, Pete Roskam of Illinois, stepped to the microphones, essentially pleading for the president to show mercy. “President Obama has an unbelievable opportunity to be a transformational president — that is, to bring the country together,” he said. “Or he can dissolve into zero-sum-game politics, where he wins and other people lose.”
Those “other people” would be the House Republicans, because it is Obama who seems to be holding all the cards right now. A poll by the Pew Research Center found that 53 percent of Americans would blame Republicans for sending the nation off the cliff and only 27 percent would blame Obama. And Republicans didn’t help their cause by ending their workweek on Wednesday and going home.
Earlier in the week, Boehner offered Obama an $800 billion tax increase with the blessing of Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, the Republicans’ vice presidential nominee this year, and other House leaders. The speaker is trying to hold out for making those hikes come from lower deductions rather than higher rates, but the White House is feeling so confident that it dismissed Boehner’s offer out of hand. Obama Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer told Peter Baker of The New York Times that Obama “won’t sign a deal that doesn’t have higher rates for the wealthy. Until they cross that bridge, nothing else is relevant.”
Republicans are looking for face-saving ways to retreat, such as allowing a tax increase to pass the House by voting “present” instead of “no.” Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the outgoing chairman of the House GOP conference, acknowledged Wednesday on CNN that “the president is going to get his revenue one way or the other.”
As they prepare to accommodate Obama, Republican leaders have begun to crack down on hard-liners in their ranks who routinely defy compromise. On Monday, two dissidents were removed from the House Financial Services Committee and two from the Budget Committee.
Outside their meeting in the Capitol basement Wednesday morning, House Republicans were coming to grips with the inevitability of the tax increase.
“We’re not looking at doomsday,” the GOP whip, Kevin McCarthy of California, assured CNN’s Dana Bash.
Ryan, who signed off on the hike, left the session with a wave. “I’m not doing press,” he said. “I’m just saying, ‘Hi.’”
Boehner emerged 17 minutes late and five minutes after his aides gave the camera crews a two-minute warning. “We made a good-faith offer,” he began, promising that “our targets and frameworks are things that we can all agree on.”
A flustered McCarthy added his perspective. “The president now has to engage,” he said. “I think the sex” — he caught himself — “the next 72 hours are critical.”
A few on the leadership team repeated the old platitudes about taxes. “An obsession to raise taxes is not going to solve the problem,” said Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state sounded the refrain that “Washington does not have a revenue problem.”
But the bromides couldn’t conceal the fact that House GOP leaders, with little dissent from the rank and file, had already acquiesced on some form of a tax increase. “House Republicans are prepared to get to yes,” Roskam said. “House Republicans are not prepared to get to foolish, and it is foolish to reject President Obama’s own self-described architecture of $3 in spending cuts for every dollar in new revenue.”
Coming from a bunch that liked to say they wouldn’t allow a dollar of new revenue even if it came with $10 in spending cuts, this white flag is as big as a bedsheet.
Dana Milbank is a columnist for The Washington Post. His email address is danamilbank@washpost.com.
They need to run that flag up the pole.
Republicans spent the better part of two years attempting to destroy President Obama and the Democrats, now they want him to “show mercy and be transformational?” Right.
Actually the Republicans learned a load from the Dems when GW Bush was President. it works both ways. Honestly, I do NOT trust Obama.
Why?
one word b-l-a-c-k ,or maybe this one m-u-s-l-i-m
Try search and destroy for 4 years.
The President’s plan isn’t going to make the ultra-wealthy, not wealthy. It will help the middle and lower classes. And no, it’s not going to solve anything. But it’s a start.
Amen!
Absolutely not. Republicans want a balanced budget. When and if we see help for the middle and lower classes because of Obama and the Dems, then I will be a believer. Until then, Stop the Spending of money we do NOT have. This was a Reply to trainguyjim.
Oh, the party of the WORST ECONOMIC RECORDS IN HISTORY want to balance budgets??? Look at the facts. Look through history. MORE jobs under Dem Presidents and less debt under them too. Clinton handed your boy Bushie a surplus and he SQUANDERED it entirely turning it into record deficits. And it is just fine for your TeaPubs to spray money at a vastly bloated no-bid military industrial complex, and for multi billions in tax subsidies to oil companies of all kinds, and you people dance for joy with every disgusting, immoral, unpatriotic tax loophole and tax shelter you can give to your corporate masters, and you dance for joy every time one of your corporate masters sends another American plant overseas. You TeaPubs have NO CASE when it comes to fiscal responsibility and economics. NONE.
Really? I agree that Clinton was doing a great job of not spending every dime that was collected and for paying down some of the US debt. Surplus not hardly! The USA has been in debt all but 1 month of it’s entire existence! (Andrew Jackson paid off all the debt in January 1835). If you want to compare apples to apples then go to the Treasury Dept’s website and take a look at how much debt was really added by Bush (close to $5 trillion in 8 years) and by Obama (over $6 trillion in 4 years). Neither side has been anything but a pain the butt since Clinton left office! PS: Congress had to vote to fund the wars that everyone keeps blaming on Bush. Let’s start putting the blame where it really lies with our elected Congressmen!
Extending the Bush cuts for the middle and lower class in exchange for allowing the top tier earners rates to revert to their previous levels is geared towards helping them, is it not? Are you excited about the possibility of your taxes going up, or would you prefer they stay where they are?
The Republicans have no choice but to “cave” or, in other words, stop acting like TeaRadical FOOLS and do just what the large majority by every poll want them to do: stop existing for the sole purpose of kissing the toenails of the billionaires, stop stealing from the middle class to give to the richest of the rich, and start making the rich pay their fair share once again. The middle class and poor have been the only ones who have to sacrifice in the recession, while the rich have only gotten richer. It is IMMORAL and extremely UNPATRIOTIC to let this kind of scandalous economic situation go on. END the UNPATRIOTIC TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH after the first quarter million dollars of income (which they will still get remember), and make them pay their fair share again. If they don’t do the right thing, Republicans will be DESTROYED at the polls come 2014, and they know it.
Take no prisoners, the tea nuts are on the run. Armey and DeMint FLEE their posts but do not kid yourselves these nuts may appear to be cracking but they are still completely delusional and full of extreme BS. Be warned they will reform as some other ultra America chest thumping knuckle dragging pathetic pack of patriots.
Does it make you feel VIP to call Tea Party members, Names/ I suggest you DO attend a Tea Party meeting and I believe you will be pleasantly surprised to see that many groups across the country have been studying the Constitution. THere is learning, re learning and no political Bias at these meetings. We all have to try harder to find common ground.
You know I hear that they’re all about the Constitution, but it’s their actions I’ve witnessed over the past election season that scare the bejesus out of me. The fact of the matter is they got hijacked by the extreme right and religious right and are totally lost thinking taxes breaks for the wealthy will do anything but line the pockets of the wealthy.
And no it doesn’t make me feel important, they make me feel POed.
Honestly, I was not aware of bad actions, and I do not know any who are or have been in favor of tax breaks for the wealthy. The people I know Do want a different tax rule but nothing concrete has appeared. Flat tax at first sounded like the answer but we all know now that would not work. In the end, the Tea Party members that I know, are on the same page in wanting fair trade, less govt., and less welfare being doled to people who deliberately set out to get in the system as in teen pregnancies. No, there is no disgust either with Planned Parenthood., THere have been so many misconceptions about all phases of the campaign and debates, that now that election is over, we all have to find that common ground and work together for the good of this country.
What you say about the tea party I’ve heard many others say about it, but one only needs to look as far as Paul Ryan who is at the apex of the group, seeming a nice guy on the surface but Ryan I know is one who mixes religion and politics continually and it is his bill that supports balancing the budget of the backs of the middle class. Jim DeMint (Mr tea party) is responsible for the likes of the now defeated Allen West who can only be classified as crazy. There are many others in our congress and many on the state level, few seem to be anything other than extreme. My view is this the tea party has become a conglomerate of the Conservatives, Neo-Cons and religious right. I have no misconceptions, look at the Republican platform, look at the numbers of abortion legislation they try and pass at the national and state levels, look at Michigan.
The best analogy I can think of concerning the tea party, it’s like the Pilgrims sitting in church all day affirming their faith, after leaving church they massacre an entire village of Native Americans.
Sorry they are just not my cup of tea, I’m strictly Coffee.
Paul Ryan is a disciple of a crack pot named Ayn Rand. My dog wouldn’t follow that greedy selfish little hag if she had a pocket full of pork chops. That is pretty sad, because “Lucy” will do anything for a pork chop.
The Fountainhead he is not, though he fancies himself such, the only thing he’s full of is BS.
The scariest thing about Paul Ryan is that he is but one arrow in the quiver of the Koch brothers. Two greedy little dirt bags that were born millionaires, became billionaires, and have made it their life’s ambition to destroy unions and lower the wages for the working men and women of America. Pretty pathetic legacy for two guys who were born with such a huge head start in life.
These guys (the Koch heads) are vying the to be the rulers of the world and will buy all that stands in their way, I kid you not.
People like the Koch brothers and the Waltons should be pitied. They are like junkies sitting on top of a mountain of heroin and all they can think about is how to get more heroin. A life consumed by an addiction is not a valuable and meaningful life. Be the obsession money or heroin.
You are so right …. so many are consumed by the concept of “Stuff,” It is that stuff that stops us from attaining anything more then more stuff. Many will never get above that stuff, and when he/she who dies with the most stuff realizes they can’t take it with them, it’s to late, all they can do is pass their stuff down to the next “stuffee.”
Of all the important things I learned early on in life, I consider the one where I learned that there are different forms of wealth to be the most valuable. When I was younger and in the Merchant Marines, everything I owned would fit in a sea bag. It was a very peaceful and content lifestyle. Sometimes, less is more.
Funny how Rand was a denier of cigarette cancer and opponent of Medicare, and died of lung cancer on Medicare?
God’s sense of humor?
Because Nancy Pelosi is such a goddess…LOL! Before either side points fingers they need to look at themselves in the mirror! Our country got here with poor policy making from both sides of the aisle. Instead of tearing each other down, we should be looking for areas that we can agree on and then work through the issues that we don’t. Hopefully, this would lead to a middle of the road compromise that is good for the largest majority of people.
Nancy Pelosi may not be a goddess, but be assured the likes of Boehner’s leadership skills pale in comparison to her’s. You speak of tearing down, you girls playing well together might be a good start.
Tea party aside, my hope is for our elected to find common ground and work together for the People. Tea party has taken many negative hits but your analogy of the Pilgrims is off the mark. Frankly the Tea party topic pales when you read the world headlines today. Some serious heads of countries with serious mental issues, now That is frightening.
I think the analogy is accurate, they (TP) study the Constitution then try to strangle government.
Think what you want but everyone needs to find common ground and need to stop the bickering. United we Stand, Divided We Fall. pretty much sums it up.
The problem HB, is that the movement and message is inconsistent and incongruous across not only the country, but with each state – I know many reasonable TP associated people. Unfortunately, the reasonable have been outnumbered and shouted down by the types who SD mentions.
At the beginning, I was happy to see a populist movement that could seriously leverage our government towards change – not for the politics necessarily, but because I believe we need more viable alternatives (the left could learn some lessons in this regard.) Though the longer the TP has been around, the more clear it’s become that it’s simply become a vehicle for the same old lesser evil, “anyone but Obama” type Republicans, albeit a further right variety.
Had the TP nationally gotten together and supported say Gary Johnson, they would have earned my respect for sticking to their principles. They for the most part, clearly did not. They got behind Romney and the status quo and sold out.
To be fair, Boehner wasn’t waving “the white flag” but the Republican Establishment flag. They’re easy to confuse.