Well, This Explains Boehner….

But what about the rest of the bunch?  Never mind.

Jon Chait at TNR has it right, the Bitch thinks.

Having already taken what he knew to be a huge risk with minimal payoff by supporting the Ryan budget, what can we expect of Boehner during the debt ceiling debate? The market seems to be expecting that cooler heads will prevail. Why would he risk financial chaos? Isn’t he listening to business leaders? But within Boehner’s world, the riskiest move is to be seen as compromising the movement’s principles. When the negotiations tick down to the end, probably in August, Boehner may be thinking not of the guns pointed at the financial system but at the ones pointed at his back. [Emphasis added.]

Boehner has grasped what the Wall Street wing keeps shaking their heads over — the GOP has been subsumed by the ultra conservative wing allied with the Tea Party, and they despise the Wall Streeters.   If John Boehner wants to keep 1) his seat and 2) his job as Speaker, he knows he has to follow the ultras’ tune.  The question for the moment is, how far will the ultras push in order to wring concessions out of the Obama Administration?

Debt Ceiling Dancing

Guess what!

• President Obama wants to raise the debt ceiling!
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) wants to raise the debt ceiling!
• So does Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R)!
• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D) wants to raise the debt ceiling! AND…drum roll, please….EVEN
• SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE JOHN BOEHNER (R – !!!) wants to raise the debt ceiling!

Matt Yglesias calls this a “deadlock,” but to the Bitch’s aged eyes, it looks like real bipartisan agreement, God help us all.  Too bad, too bad.

Boehner wants to raise the debt ceiling so much, he even trekked up to Wall Street on Monday to tell the Masters of the Universe and the BSDs that they really shouldn’t worry when he shows up on TV threatening to stifle all that necessary debt-ceiling-raising.  Because he really, truly wants to raise the ceiling.  He knows how vital raising the ceiling is — he knows what happens when the world’s single largest economy (country division) threatens to default on its obligations (see 2008 credit markets freeze/financial meltdown, USA).  HE KNOWS, already.

So why is he stalling?  Why is John Boehner not taking all that tasty-goodness knowledge to his caucus, whipping up some Dem co-sponsors in the House and Senate, and bringing a yummy piece of debt-ceiling-raising legislation to the House floor?

Because John Boehner is afraid of this guy, and these folks; and yeah, he better be afraid of her!

John Boehner knows he got taken in the government shutdown agreement in early April; therefore he needs to maintain his cred within his caucus — which, the Bitch would like to point out, is still not satisfied that the President was born in the United States of America, and resents being told to shut up about it.  John Boehner needs to maintain his credibility with his party’s energized nutjobs, because they are the Iowa caucus-goers and the primary precinct workers and the convention nominating committees of 2012.  They are his party’s base, and he has to show them he obeys or he knows they will dump his candidates for their candidates pretty damn quick in the next primary season; and he fears their candidates might not be able to guarantee a GOP hold on the US House of Representatives.  (Listen, don’t kid yourselves, all this “medicare reform” nonsense has opened a pathway for Democrats…indistinct, yes, but still a pathway.  They need to make some luck also.)  Especially since the Rs committed a strategic miscalculation when they thought the American public would be more upset at the thought of higher taxes over reduced Medicare spending.  Ooopsies!  Our bad!  Never mind!

So, John Boehner says all ceiling increases must be offset by budget cuts that exceed the difference between the old ceiling ($14.3 trillion) and the new number (thought to be somewhere in the realm of $16+ trillion), meaning he can say to the TP types, “see, I am one of you: we cut more than we raised.  Now get out there and support our candidates!”  And oh, by the way, ALL revenue increases (tax hikes) are totally off the table.  Utterly, totally, off the table.  That’s $2+ trillion in cuts, no revenue-raising, no new taxes.

Greg Sargent says this is all part of Boehner’s cunning plan to make any GOP compromises acceptable to the base, as it was in April.  This could well be true, but the Bitch doesn’t think Boehner has much room for such compromises with the extremes of his party.  It’s all or nothing at all for him…and if you’re thinking, “Bitch, that’s an awfully unreasonable position.  Who wouldn’t be thrilled with billions in cuts, if not trillions?” The Bitch points out, again, the inherent unreasonableness of the modern GOP.  They didn’t always use to be this way (sigh) but they sure as hell are now.

Sargent also points out that some of that $2+ trillion is going to have to come from Medicare (see “strategic miscalculation,” above); and that the GOP Senators are showing the whites of their eyes in fear…

So, as in April, look for lots of kabuki…and kabuki…and kabuki…This could be a long summer.

Boehner: Oil Companies Should Pay their Fair Share…Until They Shouldn’t

By now the Bitch is sure you’ve heard that House Majority Leader John Boehner has said that oil companies need to pull their weight in these budget-conscious times and accept a curtailment of their generous oil exploration subsidies.

“It’s certainly something we should be looking at,” Boehner said. “We’re in a time when the federal government’s short on revenues. They ought to be paying their fair share.”

That was music to President Obama’s ears – today he sent over a letter to Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other congressional leaders calling for an end to the subsidies.  Common ground at last!

Oops!  Not what John Boehner meant at all when he talked about oil companies paying their fair share!  Today he rejected the President’s letter, because ending the subsidies — or tax dollar giveaways to highly profitable oil behemoths who are currently making money hand over fist — amounted to a “tax increase” and, as we all know, tax increases are bad, bad, bad, since those same oil companies would pass the increases on to the public as higher gas prices.  Gouging, anyone?

UPDATE, 4/27, middle of the night

The Bitch’s Bad – John Boehner is the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, DUH – must have been wishful thinking on the Bitch’s part.

Obama Speaks! Boehner Loses!

ABC News’ Jake Tapper reports that the President was caught on an open mic at a Chicago fundraiser last night relating a few juice tidbits from last week’s budget negotiations.  Among other things, the President revealed just how low the GOP negotiators had sunk:

“And I remember at one point in the negotiations one of Boehner’s staff people pipes up and says, ‘You don’t understand Mr. President, we’ve lost on you know, on health care, we’ve lost on the EPA, we’ve given that up, we’ve got to have something to sell to our caucus.’

“And I said to them, let me tell you something: ‘I spent a year and a half getting health care passed. I had to take that issue across  the country and I paid significant political costs to get it done. The notion that I’m going to let you guys undo that in a 6 month spending bill?’ I said, ‘You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We’ll have that debate. You’re not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we’re stupid?’”   [Emphasis added.]

That poor staffer sounds like he/she’s begging, don’t they?  And they probably were, because $38.5 billion isn’t $100 billion; nor is $78.5 billion, nor $20 – $25 billion; and that CBO figure of $352 million?  Is to laugh!

The House voted on the 2011 spending bill yesterday – it passed, 260 – 167.  It flew through the Senate also, 81-19.  A number of the Tea Party Frosh defected, however — 30%, says USA Today, or about 24 of the congressional newbies.  In fact, 81 Dems had to vote for the the bill in order for it to pass.  Oh, to have been a fly on the wall during those Whip conversations!

Apparently Congress-watchers in DC are divided over whether House Speaker John Boehner is in trouble with his caucus.  The normally astute Dave Weigel has drunk the GOP kool-aid here.  The Bitch agrees with his analysis, to a point.  Yes, Boehner knew he was going to lose some of his hard-core TPers like Michele Bachmann and Jim Jordan (R-OH-04), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the right-most caucus in the GOP. But Boehner also knew this negotiation was his chance to redeem himself in TP eyes, to show that he wasn’t a squish and to shut down those idiot libruls at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.  He knew the TPers were watching him; they knew he knew; everyone knew everything and yet at the end of the night, John Boehner was left with a lousy $352 million for 2011 and a whining staff member making naked appeals to the President — the President! — for “something to sell to the caucus.”  Ouch.