The 'fiscal cliff' saga becomes even more of a joke, if it's possible.
Republican Speaker John Boehner got sand kicked in his face Tuesday when he decided to advance what he thought was a reasonable proposal, took any talk of a debt ceiling limit off the table and essentially endorsed the exact proposal Democrat House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi put out back in May of this year, for tax hikes on gross incomes over $1 million.
The Democrats laughed at him, saying that the May proposal was just a political ploy anyway.
Boehner's next brilliant idea was to have the House vote on his new proposal, dubbed 'Plan B' anyway, where, in his mind, the Senate would be forced to vote on it, or take the heat for allowing tax increases across the board.
After Dem Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stopped cackling hysterically, he called a presser and simply told the reporters that, guess what, he wasn't even going to allow the senate to vote on Boehner's little brainstorm, or pretty much anything else Boehner came up with:
Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, made his "fiscal cliff" position clear in a press conference today. "We are not going to do anything," said Reid.
Reid added, "We are not taking up anything they are working on over there."
The top Democrat in the Senate was explaining his inaction on the House plan, the proposal put forward by Republican John Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives. Boehner's plan is being referred to as 'Plan B.' [...]
In the past, Reid has indicated he'd be open to compromising. "We are willing to compromise," he said earlier this month, "but we also will not consign the middle class to higher tax bills while millionaires and billionaires avoid all the pain."
Now that Republicans have a serious proposal that would pass the House and would seem to meet the requirements Democrats previously insisted on, Reid won't permit a vote.
Why should he?
To Obama and Reid, this is a win-win. They want taxes to go up and the drastic cuts to happen, because they mainly come from the defense budget. Last year, I predicted this when GOP Minority leader Mitch McConnell made the stupid deal to increase Obama's credit card limit ( AKA the debt ceiling) in the first place. They now have no incentive to do anything.
If we go over the cliff, not only does President Obama get the higher tax rates and drastic cuts to the military he wants,but President Obama can even propose a bill at a later date to lower taxes on what he dubs the Middle Class while blaming the tax hikes on the Republicans. President Obama will then take credit for lowering the taxes thathis resistance to compromise caused in the first place.
In a way, Boehner and McConnell's putting themselves in this box is symbolic of what the GOP establishment gets wrong consistently.
"Oh, Romney can't criticize Obama, he'll lose independents" - So Romney carried Independents, the base stayed home and he LOST. The GOP still hasn't learned as witnessed by their purging of conservatives form committee seats. Trying to be Democrat Lite isn't going to win elections, and caving to Obama's blackmail isn't going to either.
The Republicans need to have a conservative spokesperson (NOT Boehner) tell the country that the path Obama has put us on is unsustainable, and explain why. And then tell the country that the Republicans are going to let Obama have whatever he wants, that every GOP legislator will vote 'present' in protest, but that it's now HIS economy, and he won't be able to blame the resulting mess on anyone else.
Conservatism wins when it's expressed clearly and eloquently.The men running the Republican party these days seems to have forgotten that, if they ever learned it in the first place
No comments:
Post a Comment