Is Boehner undone?

[kallend 2,027]

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/22/john-boehner-fiscal-cliff-undoing

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Gravitymaster 0]

I suspect Boehner will lose his Speakership.

Good riddance.

[Andy9o8 2]

The US Congress has had a long history over the past generation of weak and/or ineffectual party leaders, in both Houses, and in both major parties. The only exceptions (Congressional party leaders) in my lifetime I can think of were LBJ, Tip O'Neill and Newt Gingrich.

[GQ_jumper 4]

If the tea party keeps moving that hard-line stance further to the fringe it is going to spell the demise of the GOP. We all need to make sacrifices and people in all corners of the country need to tighten their belts and accept some hardships if we are too succeed. This however, is ridiculous, refusing to accept ANY tax increases is not the way to save our country.

And this is coming from a registered republican!

i really wish Boehner could have received more party support.

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower

[tkhayes 348]

I think he has PLENTY of 'party support'. It is the outside influences that for whatever reason are holding all the cards for the GOP.

Apparently they (the individual members of Congress and Senate together) are incapable of standing on their own as a political party, they are bowing to the demands of others. Koch, Grover, Sheldon etc. It kind of makes you wonder what these groups have over them.....oh yeah that's right - it's MONEY.

[billvon 2,998]

>If the tea party keeps moving that hard-line stance further to the fringe it is going
>to spell the demise of the GOP.

I think it's likely that the mainstream GOP will jettison the Tea Party at some point as they become more and more extremist. They lost them a lot of seats in the last election; they won't stand for that again.

[Gravitymaster 0]

I wouldn't be so sure. Paul Ryan is one of the leading candidate to become SOTH.

[brenthutch 444]

I think what we should do is have a balanced budget amendment. Government should be as big as the taxpayer is willing to pay for. If we want big government, so be it, if we want low taxes so be it, but we cannot have both.

[Bertt 0]

That idea comes up from time to time. The problem with it is that it handicaps the government too much in the event of a situation where the government really needs to run a deficit (e.g. World War II). If you say "balanced budget, except in case of ...." then everything becomes the exception. Theoretically, legislators who put the country's interest before their own self-interest would be able to manage the budget without a balanced budget amendment, but, unlike the Higg's boson, those have never been observed.

You don't have to outrun the bear.