• John Boehner

    Will John Boehner be Ousted as Speaker?

    Boehner and CampSpeaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) (front, in green tie) walks with Congressman Dave Camp (R-MI) (R) after a meeting with House Republicans about a “fiscal cliff” deal on Capitol Hill in Washington January 1, 2013

    This is a rumor over at Breitbart this morning after the Senate fiscal cliff compromise legislation was passed last night.

    American Majority Action spokesman Ron Meyer told Breitbart News late Tuesday that enough House Republicans have banded together in an effort to unseat House Speaker John Boehner from his position–they just need a leader to take up the mantle.

    “At least 20 House Republican members have gotten together, discussed this and want to unseat Speaker Boehner–and are willing to do what it takes to do it,” Meyer said. “That’s more than enough to get the job done, but the one problem these guys face is they need a leader to coalesce behind.”

    There will be NO leader and there will be NO ouster.

    No one has the stature to challenge Boehner and all of the House leadership supported the deal, regardless of their votes.

    Just a bunch of HOT AIR, due to the RIGHT’s unhappiness with last night’s vote.

    There will be new battlefronts in the near future (including sequesration and the debt limit), but replacing Boehner will not be one of them.

  • Fiscal Cliff,  John Boehner

    The House Fiscal Cliff Strategy: Shut Up and Pass a Bill

    Boehner and Obama What Should the GOP House Do About The Fiscal Cliff?

    epublican House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama at the White House on November 16, 2012

    Earth speaking to Republican House Speaker John Boehner on the “Fiscal Cliff” – shut up and pass a bill. You are not winning the discourse with the President.

    I told you before what to do and it is very simple.

    Pass an extension of the Social Security payroll tax cut and block its automatic rise from 4.2 percent of wages to 6.2 percent. To raise that tax now and scoop off the discretionary income of most of America’s families in this anemic economy makes no sense economically or politically.

    The House should then vote to extend the Bush tax cuts for another year, with a pledge to do tax reform — lowering tax rates in return for culling, cutting or capping deductions for the well-to-do in the new year.

    Then let Harry Reid work his will. If the Senate votes to let Social Security taxes rise, let Harry and his party explain this to the middle class that gets hammered in January. If the Senate votes to let the Bush tax cuts lapse for those over $200,000, decide in the caucus whether to negotiate — or to go home for Christmas and New Year’s.

    As for the automatic sequester that would impose $100 billion in cuts next year, half in defense, do nothing. Let it take effect. The budget has to be cut, and while these cuts are heavy on defense, the depth and mixture can be adjusted in the new year.

    Another week has gone by and nothing really has happened, except Obama has been beating up on the Republican brand. Boehner, you are not going to be doing any better than the above.

    So, just do it and get it over.

  • Day By Day,  John Boehner

    Day By Day February 29, 2012 – Par for the Course



    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    Republican House Speaker John Boehner, just like his GOP predecessor Newt Gingrich is a Big Government, go-along type of personality. Boehner hasn’t written his books yer, but he is not a movement type of POL.

    Now, the Democrats are boasting that they will retake the House in November.

    While this is doubtful, the GOP House Leadership should be purged in January just as a matter of their incompetence to drive a conservative narrative.

  • GOP,  John Boehner

    House GOP Blinks and Accepts Senate Passed Two Month Extension of Payroll Tax Cut

    Of course, the House GOP blinked because it was the ONLY rationale course of action.

    House Speaker John Boehner says he has reached agreement with the Senate to renew the payroll tax cut before it expires Dec. 31.

    The Ohio Republican said in a statement Thursday that he expects to pass a new bill by Christmas that would renew the tax break for two months while congressional negotiators work out a longer-term measure that would also extend jobless benefits for millions of Americans and prevent doctors from absorbing a big cut in Medicare payments.

    The GOP House has suffered only a “flesh wound” as one of my Facebook friends has said.

    But, the entire flap was handled very badly and the GOP House Caucus should be looking at some better leadership.

  • Eric Cantor,  GOP,  John Boehner

    The GOP’s Payroll Tax Fiasco – Yeah Boehner and Cantor Blew It

    Flanked by House GOP members, Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner speaks during a media availability on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. President Barack Obama Tuesday warned Republican “brinksmanship” could hurt the fragile US economy, doubling down in a pre-Christmas power duel over taxes which has deep political implications

    The House GOP leadership have created a fiasco out of a win-win compromise on the payroll tax cut extension – and they did it right before Christmas.

    Bravo, GOP establishment morons in Washington.

    Even the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page is giving you an #EPICFAIL.

    GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously said a year ago that his main task in the 112th Congress was to make sure that President Obama would not be re-elected. Given how he and House Speaker John Boehner have handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest.

    The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play.

    Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he’s spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible.

    The House GOP should reconsider their position, pass the two month extension and go home for Christmas.

    What a CLUSTER……

  • Barack Obama,  John Boehner

    Boehner Asks for Thursday: Obama Schedules Jobs Speech to Joint Session of Congress on Same Day as GOP Presidential Debate

    U.S. President Barack Obama speaks next to AFL-CIO Richard Trumpka (R) in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, August 31, 2011

    Oh My!

    President Barack Obama intends to deliver his much-anticipated speech laying out his jobs agenda and plan to cut the federal deficit on Sept. 7 to a joint session of Congress. Mr. Obamas timing steps directly on a Republican presidential debate scheduled for that same evening in Simi Valley, Calif.

    The president sent a letter to congressional leaders Wednesday requesting time to address a joint session on Sept. 7 at 8 p.m.

    Our Nation faces unprecedented economic challenges, and millions of hardworking Americans continue to look for jobs, Mr. Obama wrote. It is my intention to lay out a series of bipartisan proposals that the Congress can take immediately to continue to rebuild the American economy by strengthening small businesses, helping Americans get back to work, and putting more money in the paychecks of the Middle Class and working Americans, while still reducing our deficit and getting our fiscal house in order.

    It is our responsibility to find bipartisan solutions to help grow our economy, Mr. Obama continued, and if we are willing to put country before party, I am confident we can do just that.

    Good for the GOP Presidential contenders?

    NBC and Politico will call the shots, but a GOP debate after the President’s speech would be a full two hour prime time television rebuttal of the President.

    Of course, the debate is only being carried on MSNBC.

    My bet is the debate will be cancelled and rescheduled until a later date. Now, agreeing on that date may be problematic.

  • Barack Obama,  John Boehner

    Wall Street Journal Bags on New Obama Regulations to Cost in Excess of $1 Billion

    +++++Update Below+++++
    President Barack Obama yesterday while addressing the American Legion

    Remember last week when Speaker Boehner wrote the President about Obama Administration regulations and the American economy. Here is my post.

    Well, President Obama HAS responded.

    President Barack Obama says his administration is considering seven new government regulations that would cost the economy more than $1 billion a year, a tally Republicans will pounce on to argue that Congress needs the power to approve costly government rules.

    In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, Obama lists four proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules and three Department of Transportation rules estimated to cost in excess of $1 billion. One of the proposed EPA rules – an update to the health-based standard for smog – is estimated to cost the economy between $19 billion and $90 billion.

    The letter, dated Tuesday, comes as the Republican-controlled House prepares to consider legislation that would require congressional approval for any new regulations that would impose a significant cost on industries.

    The four environmental regulations, which target air pollution and coal residue primarily from coal-fired power plants, have already been attacked by House Republicans, who have said they would kill jobs and harm the economy.

    The letter was in response to a Boehner request last week for more details from the president on the proposed costs of the most expensive regulations under consideration by his administration. Obama’s administration has identified 219 proposed regulations this year with a cost to the economy of more than $100 million.

    Obama said a number of regulations being contemplated are in such preliminary stages of review that they have no reliable cost estimates.

    The president said the seven proposals he did identify are not final and that his administration will give careful consideration to cost-savings. He said his administration already has made changes that have saved more than $10 billion in regulatory costs over the next five years, and said new regulations must meet cost-saving requirements that he ordered earlier this year.

    He also defended his regulatory record, saying the cost of final rules adopted in 2007 and 2008, during the administration of President George W. Bush, were higher than in the first two years of his administration.

    Now, I see the Obama Administration’s strategy = blame the Bush Administration.

    I don’t think this is going to fly in the GOP dominated House, especially when you have American business already complaining.

    Update:

    Here is a piece in the Wall Street Journal that directly answers the problems with regulations and the Obama Administration.

    Among the core assumptions of modern liberalism is that future regulations have no more effect on the economy than future taxes, as if expectations don’t matter and businesses don’t prepare now for their costs tomorrow. President Obama’s letter to John Boehner yesterday is a classic of the genre.

    Last week the Speaker asked the White House to disclose any federal rules in the works with economic costs of $1 billion or more. Proposed or final rule-makings are defined as “major” when their estimated annual costs exceed $100 million. The Obama regulatory agenda for 2011 contains 219 such items. Last year, that figure was 191, versus the combined total for the first two years of the Bush Administration of 103. Amid this surge, Mr. Boehner’s underlying point was that the regulatory ambitions of the Obamanauts are redefining “major,” much in the way trillion is the new billion for government spending.

    Mr. Obama responded by identifying seven pending major rules topping $1 billion, like the Department of Transportation’s federal motor vehicle safety standard No. 111 for rearview mirrors ($3 billion) and the Environmental Protection Agency’s ozone regulations (as much as $90 billion). But even that understates the costs, as Mr. Obama explains at length. The regulatory agenda is “merely a list of rules that are under general contemplation” and “merely proposed” and “includes a large number of rules that are in a highly preliminary state, with no reliable cost estimate.”

    In other words, regulations that the Administration plans to issue don’t count. The President’s health-care plan doesn’t affect hiring because it doesn’t really kick in until 2014, and the Dodd-Frank financial reregulation isn’t a drag on lending because no one knows what dozens of agencies may do, except that it will be very expensive.

    Mr. Obama adds that “it is extremely important to minimize regulatory burdens and to avoid unjustified regulatory costs.” That “unjustified” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, but we’ll merely note that you can’t minimize or avoid them if you pretend they don’t exist until they formally enter the Federal Register.

  • Barack Obama,  John Boehner

    New Obama Regulations to Cost in Excess of $1 Billion

    President Barack Obama yesterday while addressing the American Legion

    Remember last week when Speaker Boehner wrote the President about Obama Administration regulations and the American economy. Here is my post.

    Well, President Obama HAS responded.

    President Barack Obama says his administration is considering seven new government regulations that would cost the economy more than $1 billion a year, a tally Republicans will pounce on to argue that Congress needs the power to approve costly government rules.

    In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, Obama lists four proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules and three Department of Transportation rules estimated to cost in excess of $1 billion. One of the proposed EPA rules — an update to the health-based standard for smog — is estimated to cost the economy between $19 billion and $90 billion.

    The letter, dated Tuesday, comes as the Republican-controlled House prepares to consider legislation that would require congressional approval for any new regulations that would impose a significant cost on industries.

    The four environmental regulations, which target air pollution and coal residue primarily from coal-fired power plants, have already been attacked by House Republicans, who have said they would kill jobs and harm the economy.

    The letter was in response to a Boehner request last week for more details from the president on the proposed costs of the most expensive regulations under consideration by his administration. Obama’s administration has identified 219 proposed regulations this year with a cost to the economy of more than $100 million.

    Obama said a number of regulations being contemplated are in such preliminary stages of review that they have no reliable cost estimates.

    The president said the seven proposals he did identify are not final and that his administration will “give careful consideration” to cost-savings. He said his administration already has made changes that have saved more than $10 billion in regulatory costs over the next five years, and said new regulations must meet cost-saving requirements that he ordered earlier this year.

    He also defended his regulatory record, saying the cost of final rules adopted in 2007 and 2008, during the administration of President George W. Bush, were higher than in the first two years of his administration.

    Now, I see the Obama Administration’s strategy = blame the Bush Administration.

    I don’t think this is going to fly in the GOP dominated House, especially when you have American business already complaining.