"This begins a new day in the House Of Representatives. John Boehner served with humility & distinction, & we owe him a debt of gratitude. But tomorrow we are turning the page. We are not going to have a House that looked like it looked the last two years." – new Speaker of the House Paul Ryan commenting on the new start for congressional House Republicans after former speaker Boehner cleared the deck of immediate problems for Ryan by 1) leading another suspension (not just raising) of the debt ceiling, this time until March 15, 2017 – well after the 2016 presidential election, & 2) negotiating a two year budget deal that establishes overall funding levels through September 30, 2017 that increases spending $50 billion above the sequester caps in fiscal year 2016 & $30 billion in FY 2017. In short, the Republican led House under Boehner once again gave BO everything he wanted & on Friday the Republican led Senate under McConnell followed suit.
Ryan won the speakership 236 to 184 with 9 Republicans (see below) voting for Congressman Daniel Webster of Florida. Congressman Jim Cooper of TN voted for Colin Powell; Congresswoman Gwen Graham voted for Congressman Cooper; Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema voted for Congressman John Lewis; & Congressmen Gregory Meeks, Ryan, & Webster did not vote.
| Brat Clawson (FL) Gohmert | Gosar Jones Massie | Posey Weber (TX) Yoho |
Now Boehner certainly cleared the deck for Ryan to get a fresh start as indicated above. The aforementioned debt ceiling & budget legislation passed the House 266 to 167. The incongruity of Boehner being a Republican House Speaker who passed major legislation with 187 Democrats (all but the one who didn't vote) plus a minority of 79 Republicans against the majority of 167 Republicans (see below) who voted against the legislation shows what an effective Democrat speaker Boehner has been. BO has painted the Republicans into such a corner that he gets his way more with this leadership arrangement than if he had Pelosi back as speaker. I cannot think of one thing that BO wanted that he did not get with this deal.
Not boding well for the fresh start was Ryan saying "I think this process stinks" referring to the closed door negotiations between BO, Boehner, & McConnell - before promptly voting for the budget & debt ceiling legislation himself.
| Abraham Aderholt Allen Amash Amodei Babin Barletta Barton Bilirakis Bishop (MI) Bishop (UT) Black Blackburn Blum Boustany Brat Bridenstine Brooks (AL) Buck Bucshon Burgess Byrne Carter (GA) Chabot Chaffetz Clawson (FL) Coffman Collins (GA) Crawford DeSantis DesJarlais Duffy Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Ellmers (NC) Emmer (MN) Farenthold Fincher Fleischmann Fleming Flores Forbes Foxx Franks (AZ) Garrett Gibbs Gohmert Goodlatte Gosar Gowdy Graves (GA) Graves (LA) Graves (MO) Griffith Grothman Guinta | Hardy Harris Heck (NV) Hensarling Herrera Beutler Hice, Jody B. Hill Holding Huelskamp Huizenga (MI) Hultgren Hunter Hurd (TX) Hurt (VA) Issa Jenkins (KS) Jenkins (WV) Johnson, Sam Jones Jordan Kelly (MS) Kelly (PA) King (IA) Knight Labrador LaHood LaMalfa Lamborn Lance Latta Long Loudermilk Love Lummis Marchant Marino Massie McCaul McClintock McKinley Meadows Miller (FL) Moolenaar Mooney (WV) Mullin Mulvaney Murphy (PA) Neugebauer Newhouse Noem Nugent Olson Palazzo Palmer Paulsen Pearce | Perry Pitts Poe (TX) Pompeo Posey Price, Tom Ratcliffe Renacci Ribble Rice (SC) Roby Roe (TN) Rohrabacher Rokita Rooney (FL) Roskam Ross Rothfus Rouzer Russell Salmon Sanford Schweikert Scott, Austin Sensenbrenner Sessions Shimkus Smith (MO) Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smith (TX) Stewart Stutzman Tipton Trott Wagner Walberg Walker Walorski Weber (TX) Webster (FL) Wenstrup Westerman Westmoreland Whitfield Williams Wittman Woodall Yoder Yoho Young (AK) Young (IA) Young (IN) Zeldin Zinke |
On Friday the Senate followed the same capitulation principle when Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY), acting as the effective Democrat leader of the Senate, passed the House bill with 18 Republican senators joining all 46 Democrat senators over the majority of 35 Republican senators who voted against the measure – see below.
| NAYs ---35 | ||
| Blunt (R-MO) Boozman (R-AR) Burr (R-NC) Cassidy (R-LA) Coats (R-IN) Corker (R-TN) Cotton (R-AR) Crapo (R-ID) Cruz (R-TX) Daines (R-MT) Enzi (R-WY) Ernst (R-IA) | Fischer (R-NE) Flake (R-AZ) Gardner (R-CO) Grassley (R-IA) Heller (R-NV) Hoeven (R-ND) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johnson (R-WI) Lankford (R-OK) Lee (R-UT) Moran (R-KS) | Paul (R-KY) Perdue (R-GA) Portman (R-OH) Risch (R-ID) Rubio (R-FL) Sasse (R-NE) Scott (R-SC) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Sullivan (R-AK) Toomey (R-PA) |
| Not Voting - 1 |
Vitter (R-LA)
Please note that Jeb made a fool of himself @ the last debate scolding Rubio for missing Senate votes; but Rubio did return to Washington to vote against the debt ceiling & budget legislation. Go figure.
None of the above is meant to be totally cynical toward Boehner. He (& McConnell) were asked to deliver more than they could & accordingly they never defined the problem correctly – namely that they (we) are outnumbered & cannot pass bills 1) without a 60 vote filibuster-proof majority in the Senate that brings debate to cloture & a floor vote & 2) a veto-proof majority in both chambers that will be able to override a presidential veto. Short of both of these conditions there is nothing but frustration for people who are seeing the country deteriorate in front of their eyes as BO continues his deliberate path of destruction virtually unabated.
There is no substitute for winning elections & it was not long ago that the Democrats won the presidency & controlled both chambers of Congress in what Sean Hannity calls a center-right country.
If Ryan was the answer to conservatives' prayers to start reversing BO's programs there would have been no need to clear the deck of problems for him - he would have simply done the work that conservatives have longed for that Boehner supposedly couldn't. But neither Ryan or any member of the Freedom Caucus or any other caucus could have done any better than Boehner did in the long run because the numbers are just stacked against them (& us). All that happened last week was that the Republicans moved past the usual debt ceiling & budget problems that have dogged them during BO's entire presidency – but @ tremendous cost as Pelosi & Reid, who were both all smiles last week in welcoming Ryan to the speakership, were only too happy to go along with the charade since they got everything they wanted & are ready to pull the rug out from under Ryan when the appropriations bills must be passed, likely in an omnibus bill, by December 11 – the date the government's current funding expires.
Prior to the Senate vote Senator Ted Cruz took to the Senate floor to 1) protest Ryan's deck clearing start orchestrated by Boehner, 2) forecast no change of results under Ryan's speakership, & 3) describe the above situation to a tee – namely that McConnell would pass the debt ceiling & budget legislation with every Democrat & enough Republicans to overrule the majority of Republicans – all with no fight.
Senator Cruz went on to provide seven different things the Senate Republicans could do to show some fight such as using the Default Prevention Act of 2015 that requires the Treasury to pay in full & on time the principal & interest due on the debt regardless of the debt ceiling status. Cruz pointed out that the Treasury takes in over $200 billion per month in revenue & that the interest payments approximate $40 billion per month so there is enough money coming in to honor the interest payments. The problem of course with this line of reasoning is that this means that funding of other government programs will not be honored under this scenario & we will quickly find out just how unimportant honoring the country's debt obligations are to the people dependent on government programs.
BO implies he is financially responsible when he frequently points out that raising the debt ceiling does not authorize more spending – it authorizes the government to pay for things that Congress has already agreed to spend money on. With this explanation BO tries to shift the blame for the nation's debt problems to Congress's spendthrift ways as if he is just an innocent bystander. At the very least, when the debt ceiling is approached, potential reductions in government spending should be front & center for all elected officials to consider, including BO, so that raising the debt ceiling ad infinitum can be reversed. Of course BO's purposeful destructive plan for America precludes such teamwork.
But it is not just BO & Congress who do not want to take bumping up against the debt ceiling as an opportunity to become financially responsible – it is the 108 million Americans who got means-tested government benefits in 2011 (compared to the 102 million Americans who work full time – source Dick Morris, Power Grab - Page 48). It can be nothing but dangerous to the Republic when the number of people who get welfare from the government exceeds those working full time.
To the majority of Americans – those receiving government benefits - the 2016 election will not be about such things as B standing for budget, C standing for concerns about a rising national debt, D standing for debt ceiling, or H standing for hope that Ryan's speakership will restore order & respect for the people's House; but rather Z standing for zero which is the chance that any Republican presidential candidate has to win the presidency in 2016 unless there is a dramatic mindset change to restore lasting liberty & wealth-producing jobs through a return to our founding principles of limited government, personal responsibility, & free enterprise.
Reference posts:
Good commentary. However one point made confuses me. "Neither Ryan or any member of the Freedom Caucus could have done any better than Boehner in the long run". If true Republicans should just admit defeat and go home.
ReplyDeleteIf your statement is correct it is simply due to the fact that none of them know how to frame their argument, something John Boehner and McConnell are absolutely horrible at doing.
They need to learn how to get more media savvy, how to make their points in practical understandable ways. The majority of voters vote based on emotion, not on objective analysis. Many claim to vote on an objective basis but when one really questions them you realize it was the "emotional connection" that led to the way their ballot was cast.
Many years ago it was stated that a republic will last up until the politicians learn to use the public treasury as their piggy bank. This has proven to be true and will continue to be true as long as politicians are allowed to do so. And since it is the natural order of things the only way to counter that is by showing on real, practical and emotional terms how those politicians are screwing the people.
And since most of Washington's Republican's also are into the vote buying scheme or keep retreating it is going to take a real leader and outsider to swing the pendulum back. I doubt Ryan is the person to do the swinging. Time will tell.
The answer to your question lies in the last part of the sentence that you did not include – “because the numbers are just stacked against them (& us).” I mentioned that the 60 vote filibuster rule in the Senate & the two thirds needed in both chambers to override a veto are numbers we do not have & this was never explained – people thought having majorities in both chambers would turn things around & how wrong they were & frustrated they have become. There is no making lemonade out of this pile of lemons by Ryan, Jim Jordan, Steve King, Trey Gowdy or any of the others that I like.
DeleteI put in “long run” because someone else may have fooled around for a while but in the long run BO had & has the numbers so the result would have been the same legislatively no matter who was speaker. No speaker could have repealed & replaced ObamaCare or defunded Planned Parenthood with the numbers deficit they had to work with. Winning elections is what counts & after losing the 2012 presidential election admitting defeat & going home is a strong option but disbanding the Republican Party is a better one. Now they are crying & whining about unfair questions from someone named Becky Quick – not a helpful image.
We are @ the apathy to dependence stage of Death Of Democracy & it is not just the politicians who have figured out how to use the public treasury but also Romney’s 47% & now after four more years of BO I believe we are over 50% of the citizenry being on one government program or another.
Republicans are hated by the media so getting more media savvy is a tall order.
Without the mindset change I mention @ the end I think people like you & me are in for more frustration until John Galt comes along, if he ever does.
Hope I addressed your points of concern. I think they are all covered in the post.
The main point is the zero that Z stands for.