Jesus tapdancing Christ. Cross the aisle, Boehner.
Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) abrupt decision to capitulate and hand President Obama a straightforward debt-ceiling increase resulted from simmering divisions that have virtually paralyzed his majority. On an issue that once defined his Speakership, Boehner is now confronting a president who won’t negotiate and a conference that can’t coalesce around an offer. “We don’t have 218 votes, and when you don’t have 218 votes, you have nothing,” the Speaker told reporters on Tuesday, summing up the fix he found himself in on the debt limit. “We’ve seen it before. We see it again.”
You didn’t have enough votes to oppose this latest monstrosity, so you figured if ya can’t beat ’em join ’em? You checked your principles, values, integrity, and ethics at the door.
Time and again over the last six months, rank-and-file Republicans have rejected their leadership’s proposals for attaching policy strings to extensions of the nation’s borrowing limit — most recently on Monday evening, when conservatives said “no” to a plan to reverse $6 billion in cuts to military pensions enacted in December. While Boehner spoke only of the debt limit on Tuesday, internal divisions have taken down bills or stymied progress on a host of issues in recent years, including immigration, appropriations bills, a major highway proposal and an alternative to Obama’s healthcare reform law. “There’s a great deal of frustration on the part of leadership because members are all over the map, and it makes it very difficult to govern at the end of the day,” Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (R-La.) said. On the debt limit, Boehner has had to beat a slow and steady retreat from his original demands of equal or greater spending cuts or reforms in exchange for higher borrowing. While Republicans won token concessions for debt-limit extensions in 2013, the Speaker finally stood down on Tuesday, telling his conference he would bring a clean, year-long extension of the debt limit to the floor and allow Democrats to pass it. The announcement was met with silence, according to lawmakers in the room. “Disappointed, I think, would be the mood,” Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) said. “Everyone understands where the Speaker is on this, and many people offered a sympathetic view of where he was.”
Disappointment??? I’d have given that craven assclown a heaping helping of anger and disgust. This is really idiotic:
“I’m not going to let the country default on its obligations under any circumstances,” said Dent, one of 28 Republicans to support the clean debt-limit extension.
When you vote for out of control debt hikes, you give rubber-stamp approval for more out of control spending. You create insurmountable “obligations” because none of you believe in fiscal responsibility, you jackass.
Raising the debt ceiling is like giving crack to an addict.
So much for demanding Obama’s accountability.
Tea party leaders said Thursday they aren’t to blame for the debt limit increase that Republican leaders helped approve this week, saying the GOP’s problem isn’t divisions in the ranks but lack of spine at the top. ……“Quite frankly, we just tune them out,” said Amy Kremer, head of Tea Party Express. “They have no spine and they will not fight for anything.”
Judson Phillips, a leader of Tea Party Nation, said Mr. Boehner has frittered away numerous opportunities to go to war for conservative principles.“Boehner does not want to fight,” Mr. Phillips said. “He has never wanted to fight. He started from the weakest possible position and then when someone pointed that out he acted like a petulant child and said, ‘Fine, I’ll just give up.’ And he did.”
The national debt at the start of Obama’s regime was $10 trillion. After five years of Obamanomics, it’s now over $17 trillion. It’s not just the dollar amount, it’s the abject waste; the insane projects, causes, and unworthy recipients that will make your boil.
The tax/borrow/spend orgy is unsustainable. And the GOP chickenshits are all too glad to help.
These are the 28 worthless House Republican derelicts who voted to raise the debt ceiling:
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)
Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.)
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.)
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)
>Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.)
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.)
Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.)
Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.)
Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.)
Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.)
Rep. Michael Grimm (N.Y.)
Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.)
Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.)
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)
Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.)
Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.)
Rep. Gary Miller (R-Calif.)
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)
Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.)<
Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.)
Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.)
Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.)
Rep. Jon Runyan (R-N.J.)
Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.)
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.)
Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.)
Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.)
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.)
And the Senate Republican chumps:
John Barrasso (Wyoming)
Susan Collins (Maine)
Bob Corker (Tennessee)
John Cornyn (Texas)
Jeff Flake (Arizona)
Mike Johanns (Nebraska)
Orrin Hatch (Utah)
Mark Kirk (Illinois)
John McCain (Arizona)
Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
John Thune (South Dakota)
Just to drive home the extent of their cowardice, they tried to keep the vote tally secret until the outcome was assured.
As lawmakers voted Wednesday on must-pass legislation to increase the government’s debt limit, they dropped the parliamentary equivalent of a curtain on the voting as it was in progress. Typically, roll-call votes in the Senate play out in a very public manner. People watching from the galleries or tracking action from afar via C-SPAN can watch democracy unfold in all its messy wonder. Each senator’s vote is announced by the clerk; each time a senator switches sides, that’s announced too. Onlookers can keep a running tally of how it’s going.
But not this time. Fifteen minutes into the vote, as captured by C-Span cameras, the tally clerk rose to recite the vote. A Senate aide alerted Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of the six Republicans who later switched his vote from “nay” to “aye.” McCain intervened, and the clerk sat right back down. “Would you …” McCain said before the live microphone cut off.
……Senate leaders hoped they would get the necessary votes ultimately, but they were worried at the time and faced financial and political repercussions if the vote cratered in public view.
……Whatever the reason, they kept the public in the dark while they worked things out. A Democratic spokesman later explained that Republicans requested the clerk stay silent so it would be easier for GOP senators to switch their votes. No more announcing each individual “yea” and “nay.” The running tally was known only by a handful of insiders. What was clear, though, as the vote dragged on well beyond the allotted 15 minutes, was that Republicans were reluctant to help Democrats overcome a filibuster by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican and tea party favorite who set out to keep the Senate from even voting on the actual debt measure. It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster, and the count was stuck at 58. The debt limit measure teetered on the brink of failure. Cruz’s insistence on getting 60 votes prevented the bill from being passed with a simple majority in the 100-member Senate. Had he not objected, the 53 Democrats and two independents who align themselves with Democrats could have done it by themselves without forcing any Republicans – particularly those up for re-election this year – to cast politically painful votes.
……“After the vote began, it was quickly clear that Republican leaders were struggling to deliver enough votes … and a potentially catastrophic default suddenly seemed possible,” Jentleson said. “At Senate Republicans’ request, the clerk did not call the names during the vote to make it easier for Republican leaders to convince their members to switch their votes.” So GOP leaders struggled to find the five GOP votes needed to help the Democrats overcome Cruz’ filibuster. ……The decisive moment came when top Republicans Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and John Cornyn of Texas, both up for re-election this year, stepped to the well of the Senate and voted “aye.”
The little yellow bellies hid behind a secret vote so they could switch positions out of the view of the citizens.
Boehner and the bulk of the Republican contingent in the House and Senate have forgotten that they gained seats thanks to Tea party support. We won’t forget their betrayal.
Related articles:
http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/which-republican-senators-switched-their-debt-limit-votes/
http://www.rollcall.com/news/cruz_calls_out_gop_leaders_as_dishonest_on_debt_issue-230912-1.html
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