I was jolted awake Friday morning by the news that the John Boehner had blinked.
And to make matters worse, the spin was that they he caved under the withering rhetoric of the President. It took more than a willing suspension of disbelief for me to digest the fact that the Republicans actually came out on the horns of appearing heartless AND gutless when it came to their plan to extend the payroll tax cuts for a year, as opposed to the two months proposed by the Democrats.
Let me get this straight: the GOP wanted a full year of tax cuts, something with which every American could probably get on board, and not only blew it but managed to end up looking like the bad guys in the attempt? They wanted year long tax cuts and ended up getting scolded by Obama and spanked by Harry Reid? They ended up as the Bad Guys?
No wonder Gary Johnson became a Libertarian. Hell I might become a Libertarian.
What was Boehner afraid of? Getting static from the Mainstream Media? The GOP was going to get that anyway simply by being the GOP. He should have known that by standing his ground, the Republicans would get skewered for being heartless. And he had to have known that by caving, the Republicans would get skewered for being gutless. And wonder of wonders, both happened!
Was he worried that the President would let the Keystone Pipeline go by the wayside? News Flash: That’s going to happen too. The GOP could have set a time limit of 60 days, 30 days, or even 30 minutes. The President will approve it, if he approves it, as soon as it is politically expedient. For that matter he doesn’t have to approve it at all. And for a guy who is fascinated by green energy and renewables, for all of their environmental and campaign dividends, he well could make the decision not to approve the pipeline. Which means the House Republicans not only get humiliated, they don’t get the pipeline either.
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Harry Reid made the rounds after the vote in what the Associated Press called a victory lap, noting “ "I hope this Congress has had a very good learning experience, especially those who are newer to this body…Not everything we do around here has to end up in a fight.”(read the full article here)
And the hell of it is, he’s right. The GOP didn’t have any fight in it, and was cowed by a speech by the President. Reid got exactly what he wanted. And he knew once the President came out against business-as-usual in DC and lower taxes, the GOP would fold. But his message to the “newer” legislators was not one of compromise. It was “You Tea Partiers better recognize who runs this show, and if you try that crap again, we’re going to make you look like the meanest bunch of One Percenters ever to twirl a moustache.”
Reid has predicted an end to the Tea Party. If the end comes it will be because these people we sent to Washington ended up being the same old cast of characters who always go to Washington.
As a Republican, I’m not even mad anymore. I’m not even disgusted.
These guys had it in the bag, and they gave the bag away. There didn’t have to be a fight, because the people we shipped off to Capitol Hill for the purpose of fighting gave up. And now the President wants another debt ceiling hike. And who wants to bet me that we’ll hear soaring rhetoric from the Republicans about not raising the ceiling until we cut the pork, and that they will STILL give it to him in exchange for some nebulous promise of negotiations down the road? Negotiations that will end exactly the way the payroll tax debacle did?
Gary Johnson may be consigned to the outside lane of the Presidential race when he changed parties from GOP to Libertarian, but the guy did lower the cost of Government in New Mexico, something no one we have sent to DC has managed to accomplish.
Poll numbers aside, I don’t blame him a bit for bailing.
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