Paul Kane of the Washington Post repeats the common wisdom.
For Boehner, Saturday’s vote marked an early political victory, allowing his party to honor a 2010 campaign pledge to trim spending to 2008 levels.
“It’s democracy in action,” Boehner said in an impromptu, triumphal news conference off the House floor just past 9 p.m. Friday, when it was clear the bill would pass. “I’m proud of this vote,” he added.
But what kind victory is this? The White House immediately rejected the House’s bill and the Senate isn’t even going to consider it. For five days the House debated and held votes on more than a hundred amendments, but none of it means a thing. And John Boehner has put himself in a real jam.
Congress must pass some kind of funding bill by March 4th or the government will shut down. The Senate is on vacation all next week, and they have insufficient time to debate and pass their own spending bill. The only solution is to pass a quick Continuing Resolution that covers just the two or three weeks that the Senate will need. But Boehner seems to have precluded that possibility.
House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) has said he won’t approve another extension unless it also includes significant cuts. And it’s unclear whether the scores of Republican freshmen who were elected last fall on their promise to dramatically downsize the federal government will agree to any sort of deal, particularly after insisting on the deep cuts agreed to Saturday.
Perhaps Boehner can get the freshmen to agree to a very short-term bill to give the Senate time, but how will he get them to vote for the bill the Senate eventually produces?
This is why I don’t feel like Boehner won any kind of victory yesterday. He missed an opportunity to rein in his freshmen class and instead let them run roughshod over the entire apparatus of the federal government, slashing and burning as they went. Maybe Boehner thinks that they had earned the right to sow their oats a little bit before getting down to business, but it appears to me that he’s lost control of his caucus and is incapable of leading his house of Congress.
Where’s the victory in that?
