By Steve Benen
As recently as Friday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was on the same page as President Obama, at least far as debt-reduction targets go. Both wanted a plan with $4 trillion in savings; both eyed a “grand bargain” that would include new revenue; and both believed they could convince enough members of their respective parties to get on board once the deal was done.
By at least one account, the Speaker was “
enthusiastically” endorsing the notion of a grand bargain and told his Republican colleagues that this is why he
wanted to be Speaker in the first place.
Boehner, humiliated,
reversed course on Saturday night, after learning that his own caucus refused to follow his lead. How bad is it?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58662.html">This bad.
“It’s crazy to think the speaker was considering a trillion (dollars) in tax increases. After all, we’re the anti-tax party,” said one veteran Republican lawmaker close to leadership. “Cantor brought him, the economy and our party back from the abyss. Cantor is strengthened, clearly. And it’s another example of the speaker almost slipping beyond the will of the GOP conference.”
Note, that’s not a quote from a Democrat trying to drive a wedge between the House Speaker and his caucus; that’s a quote from a long-time Republican member of Congress who’s “close” to the GOP leadership.
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