Boehner Caves, Is Anyone Surprised?

It appears that Speaker John Boehner is going to go with with Nancy Pelosi plan and raise taxes on people earning over $1 million. While the media is calling this a tax cut plan, in reality this is nothing more than an extension of current tax rates for everyone but those earning over $1 million. The plan wouldn’t include any debt ceiling extension nor would it include any spending cuts. Taxes go up January 1st, when spending cuts will happen is anyone’s guess. This is a weak, pathetic move by Boehner. Let’s be honest though, we expected nothing less from a man unashamed of weeping in public.

Not agreeing to spending cuts in exchange for a tax increase is nothing short of a disaster for the GOP. Yes, the debt ceiling remains an issue. But there are those out there who believe Obama can get around the debt ceiling by coining money. The Constitution allows the Treasury to mint and coin money. There are those on the left who believe the government could mint a platinum coin, give it a value of, say, $2 trillion and then rack up debt on the coin. It would be like the Fed printing more money except in this case the coin would never go into circulation. It would sit in a Treasury vault while the Obama administration creates new debt based on the declared value of the coin.

We don’t know that the Obama administration is preparing to put on this sort of a ruse for the American people. But it’s an idea that’s out there and we know there are many on the left, including Paul Krugman, who want Obama to go there and thus take the debt ceiling out of the hands of Congress for good. Let’s say Obama goes down this route, Boehner will have given the President tax increases for nothing and then he’ll be left with a meaningless debt ceiling and no way to for the President to make any cuts at all. Worse, he’s setting up a future showdown over gun control which will be tied to spending cuts by Obama.

We Republicans need to recognize that we have an incompetent running the House Caucus. It’s time for the rank and file to revolt against Boehner. He’s weak and he doesn’t play his cards very well. He’s fallen into one Obama trap after another. Boehner is about to give the President tax increases for nothing while setting up a future showdown where we all know Obama will tie spending cuts to gun control or some other horrible piece of legislation. Even if Obama doesn’t go down the platinum coin route (it’s unlikely that he will) does anyone really believe Boehner is going to get any significant spending cuts in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling?

It’s time to send Boehner back to his tavern in Ohio. We need a Speaker who isn’t going to bow before the President, we need one who can negotiate with this man without weeping. One of the biggest problems the GOP has had since Bush 41 is that we’ve always had very weak appearing leaders. There have been few exceptions and they have usually had such glaring flaws that they’ve been made weak by them. Who the next Speaker should be is anyone’s guess. But does anyone really think the GOP could do worse than Boehner at this point?