Has Speaker Boehner lost control of his majority?

[BostonPirate]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/20/john-boehner-debt-ceiling-votes_n_904386.html

Several House insiders agreed it's quite possible that at least 80 Republicans will refuse to vote for any debt ceiling increase. If so, at least 57 of the House's 193 Democrats would have to vote aye to raise the debt limit. But many Democrats will find it hard to swallow a Republican-dictated package that no includes no additional taxes, even on the wealthiest Americans.

The goal of 217 assumes that all members actually vote. Getting to that number would represent a remarkable degree of bipartisanship in an era of bitterly partisan divisions. Obama's health care overhaul of 2010, for example, passed without a single Republican vote in the House or Senate.

Boehner's best hope is to mimic an April vote in which 81 Democrats joined 179 Republicans in voting for a budget deal that averted a government shutdown.

The poll is simple. Has Boehner lost the ability to deliver votes as the majority leader of the house of reps?

It seems to me, he never HAS had control. Bill after bill he personally introduces gets shot down by the tea party caucus, and he looks worse for the wear, every time.

Can Boehner deliver his caucus when the leadership reaches a deal?

Its too late for anything of substance. The CBO has to run the numbers on a bill to write the exact dollar amounts into it. Thats where the gang of six's bill is right now. Reid says he can probably get the 60 he needs, but reminds everyone that revenue bills MUST originate from the House of Reps.

So at this point all that is possible before default is a simple bill that raises the debt ceiling. Any budget language in it at all, and it has to pass through the CBO to be adjusted and analyzed as factual, and amended to make it so.

Incidentaly... the congress that was most productive was Speaker Pelosi's 111th, with over 8,000 bills passed. Unfortunately the GOP filibustered a majority of them.

I am hopeful that I he can, but I am beginning to think that this is a runaway train that no one can stop from running off the rails.

 

[BostonPirate]

oh and BTW?

the House took the time a few days back to quietly slide this little tidbit of a bill in there

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h2551/text

JULY 15, 2011
Mr. CRENSHAW, from the Committee on Appropriations, reported the following bill; which was committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed
A BILL
Making appropriations for the Legislative Branch for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2012, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
That the following sums are appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the Legislative Branch for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2012, and for other purposes, namely

TITLE I--LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
SALARIES AND EXPENSES
For salaries and expenses of the House of Representatives, $1,226,680,000

Looks like they can figure out a way to pay themselves with an extra budgetary bill to the tune of one and a quarter billion buckaroos.

Its granny and the military they just didnt manage to get to.

It just rolls on and on..... and we are ALL DOWNHILL

 

[White Eagle]

I was gonna say has he ever had control, but you took care of that,.
Of course they will pay themselves.!

 

[Ninja108]

Democrat or Republician, they only care baout one thing..making themselves richer.

 

[CowboyBob]

Boehner never had control to begin with, and he never will. The tea party the GOP courted so sweetly has now taken over and is trying to devour their host. Unfortunately they will take the rest of the country down with it.

Boehner doesn't even get respect from Eric Cantor the house majority leader, who only has dreams of a brighter future for himself. It was evident when Cantor threw Boehner under the bus with the budget talks.

I don't care that these Republicans destroy each other. Who voted these assholes in anyway? They're to blame.

 

[chrisrobin]

Boehner never had control to begin with, and he never will. The tea party the GOP courted so sweetly has now taken over and is trying to devour their host. Unfortunately they will take the rest of the country down with it.

Boehner doesn't even get respect from Eric Cantor the house majority leader, who only has dreams of a brighter future for himself. It was evident when Cantor threw Boehner under the bus with the budget talks.

I don't care that these Republicans destroy each other. Who voted these assholes in anyway? They're to blame.

I must answer with a heavy heart. The Democrats who decided to stay home like a bunch of petulant children out of protest are responsible. Actually, they were very irresponsible. They sure showed Obama a thing or two!

 

[BostonPirate]

I must answer with a heavy heart. The Democrats who decided to stay home like a bunch of petulant children out of protest are responsible. Actually, they were very irresponsible. They sure showed Obama a thing or two!

The right and responsibility to vote is core to the values of basic american citizenship.

Without a voting populace, we become an autocracy that wavers back and forth between theocracy and plutocracy.

 

[Zingerific]

100% so far say that Boehner has lost control.

I've been wondering how this would play out since November. The GOP certainly has made a Faustian bargain. I had to laugh at Chris Matthews when he said that Boehner's statement the other day looked like a "hostage video." Heh.

 

[hotatlboi]

The point where I realized he had lost control was when he stated that it wasn't his place to respond to the absurd birther rumors raised by some Reps.

When you cannot even call out the process destroying pointless demonization without having the crazies turn on you, that's kind of sad.

 

[maxpowr9]

I said "no" simply because the question implies that he once had control. How does one lose control when he never had it to begin with?

 

[Kulindahr]

I was gonna say has he ever had control, but you took care of that,.
Of course they will pay themselves.!

That was my firs thought on reading the poll: the actual truth isn't there. The Republican "majority" is a myth, because the Tea Party Klingons (most of those who got elected rate that) are not Republicans. They don't think Republican, they don't act Republican, they don't vote Republican.

Political parties should require dues, and the national committee should have the authority to disqualify people as candidates. Without that, the whole thing is a farce.

I must answer with a heavy heart. The Democrats who decided to stay home like a bunch of petulant children out of protest are responsible. Actually, they were very irresponsible. They sure showed Obama a thing or two!

Just like the lazy-ass youth gave us Prop. 8.

If you believe in something, get out and vote -- or shut up.

Here's an idea: voters should get issued a coupon showing they voted. If you don't have a coupon to mail in with your taxes, you get NO deductions.

And miss three elections in sequence, and you lose your citizenship.

 

[evanrick]

And people talk shit about Nancy Pelosi, she was 10x the speaker that JB is.

And JB never had his caucus behind him, he only became speaker because he was minority leader.

I guess its a good thing that Boehner is speaker as he wasnt elected on the tea-party platform.

 

[BostonPirate]

And people talk shit about Nancy Pelosi, she was 10x the speaker that JB is.

And JB never had his caucus behind him, he only became speaker because he was minority leader.

I guess its a good thing that Boehner is speaker as he wasnt elected on the tea-party platform.

I don't thin kBoehner is going to survive the two years of his term as speaker. I REALLY believe that Cantor, in collusion with the tea baggers, are trying to oust him and put one of their own in there.

Ehh... they are all going to get kicked out.

You have to legislate if you are a legislatOR. they do not.

They use votes to pontificate and make statements, but few things that the house passes, can ever reach the senate much less the presidents desk.

The house of Reps is broken, and if the GOP had any hopes of retaining a seat of majority in any of the branches of the legislature, they would have realized that the average american really doesn't care about one side or the other.

They just want shit to be fixed.

 

[laikaNYC]

And people talk shit about Nancy Pelosi, she was 10x the speaker that JB is.

And JB never had his caucus behind him, he only became speaker because he was minority leader.

I guess its a good thing that Boehner is speaker as he wasnt elected on the tea-party platform.

Is that why her [Pelosi] approval ratings were in single digits?

 

[BostonPirate]

Is that why her [Pelosi] approval ratings were in single digits?

or why she passed 8000 pieces of legislation that the senate GOP filibustered? AND then bitched that nothing is being fixed?

mmm..Hmmm

You are going to see her return in a little over a year as speaker of the house, so get used to the idea of it.