I said in an earlier post, this:
For John Boehner, nothing is worth doing, unless you can screw the Democrats at the same time. My bet is he tries to go the Teabagger route, because he wants to do whatever it takes to kick a Conservative bill into the Senate, and have the Democrats there "take the blame" for shooting it down.
And now, we have confirmation from Talking Points Memo:
Looks like House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will try to close GOP ranks around existing legislation to fund the government rather than scrap a controversial requirement that disaster relief funds be offset with an unrelated budget cut. And that means they'll be moving ahead without Democratic support -- a risky gamble that could lead to a government shutdown if it fails.
"The Speaker's seeking more Republican votes," Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who led a House conservative rebellion on Wednesday, told reporters after an impromptu Thursday GOP meeting.
According to other Republicans, Boehner will swap out the existing disaster relief offset -- a hybrid vehicle manufacturing incentive -- with new cuts.
Remember there are consequences to this strategy, from Stan Collander:
[By moving to the right] to pick up tea party votes by (1) proposing bigger spending reductions for fiscal 2012 than were included in the bill that was defeated yesterday and (2) continuing to refuse to allow the Hurricane Irene-related disaster assistance to be provided unless others spending is cut to pay for it. The tea partiers want fiscal 2012 discretionary spending to be set at the level included in the House-passed budget resolution — AKA, the Ryan plan — rather than the higher level included in the debt ceiling increase/deficit reduction plan (the Budget Control Act) enacted on August 2.
The problem with this strategy, however, is that it will likely lose other votes from Republicans in North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey — the states that were hardest hit by Irene. Note that three of these four — all but North Carolina — have Republican governors who have said that they want/need/must have the federal assistance. And House Democrats are very unlikely to go along.
Lemme repeat something. There was a deal between the White House and Congress as to how much spending would be cut made back in August. I'm sure you remember.
Now, in order to secure more Republican votes (some of which he may lose, but I bet they can twist enough arms), they are going back on their word.
Boehner is probably going to get this out of the House, and make it the Senate's problem...but hopefully the Senate will turn around and throw it back in the House's face, meaning Conference Committee here we come!
In the meantime, the Senate will be screaming over how the House went back on their word.
Oh, and by the way, they need to do all this by the end of the month.
Sooner or later, that 9% approval rating is going to look sky high.
