During both 2011 and 2012, the Speaker spent weeks shuttling between the Capitol and the White House for meetings with the president in the hopes of striking a grand bargain on the deficit.
Those efforts ended in failure, leaving Boehner feeling burned by Obama and, at times, isolated within his conference.
In closed-door meetings since leaving the “fiscal cliff” talks two weeks ago, lawmakers and aides say the Speaker has indicated he is abandoning that approach for good and will return fully to the normal legislative process in 2013 — seeking to pass bills through the House that can then be adopted, amended or reconciled by the Senate.
“He is recommitting himself and the House to what we’ve done, which is working through regular order and letting the House work its will,” an aide to the Speaker told The Hill.
The negotiations approach has obviously become a trap. For one thing, Boehner has proven to be not very good at it. The president “negotiates” in bad faith and uses deadline pressure to slip bad bills through before legislators and the voters have any chance to read them. The next big fight, over the debt ceiling in February, could have been expected to have gone down like the last one, if Boehner stuck to negotiating directly with the president.
Plus, while Boehner will be re-elected Speaker of the House, he will come into the new Congress damaged: He lost the Plan B vote and there will be fewer Republicans in the House. Restoring the legislative process could end up restoring the House’s ability to fight its constant battles with the Democrats who pincer it from the White House and the Senate.
The fact of the matter is that this is supposed to be a constitutional representative democracy, not a constitutional monarchy. Deliberations on the course of the United States are supposed to occur in the body designed to be the deliberative one–the Congress–and not between two individuals in private. I do not say that Barack Obama has uniquely transgressed on this ideal that major decisions are started and made in the legislature, and not by one man–just that I do not think he cares if violence is done to the ideal, as long as his will be done.
If we wish what basically amounts to a consitutional monarchy–and the press certainly seems like they like the concept in the abstract, as long as it Barack Obama holding the sceptre–then we should stop pretending we cherish another system. Otherwise, let’s see if the American Experiment is actually still capable of working, with deliberations and debate occurring in the halls of Congress, and not it just being mere perfunctory votes made in lockstep by party members on deals made by leaders in backrooms, a boon to faction if not to the commonweal.
And as a general comment–I am an free and independent citizen. I would like to think that if my representative is on a committee, it is because he has valuable things to offer via service there–judgement, insight, etc.
I voted for a representative, not for a blank check to be given to a Speaker or Party Leader. When my representative is forced to represent a party more than a district, lest he lose influence and committee spot independent of any considerations of his talent or performance, then, to the extent which he is forced to represent the views of a member from another district or state (said district or state being a coequal to mine under the Constitution, and not a superior), then to the extent to which it happens, the citizens of that leader’s district or state have more representation, and I less, in what is supposed to be a Congress of equals (state or district). I thus, to the extent which it happens, have been disenfranchised, and am seemingly at the mercy of a cabal.
I will repeat it for the millionth time:
any political tactic is doomed if it is not inspired and guided by the understanding that the Republic is facing and attempt to “fundamentally change” it (words of the King Obama).
The GOP keeps taking a knife at a gun fight.
Denounce the general subversive project.
Call the Nation to unity against the class warfare tactics of this administration.
Denounce the culture of totalitarianism.
Be bold.
Republicans got into this situation because they negotiated.
Solution: Do not negotiate.
Pass a package of cuts big enough to eliminate the need to raise the debt ceiling.
“Pass a package of cuts big enough to eliminate the need to raise the debt ceiling.”
Sure would like to see that happen.
Followed by Speaker Pelosi in 2014.
There is no way in hell republicans would even consider it. It would be political suicide. And anyone that thinks differently is delusional.