John Boehner has proven once again that he just isn’t very good at his job. He tried to pass a bill yesterday that would provide disaster relief to the states affected by Hurricane Irene as well as keep the government from shutting down at the end of the month, and he failed miserably. Forty-eight members of his party voted against him and the bill was crushed, 195-230. The Speaker should be feeling an emotion called humiliation.
“DeLay would never have lost this vote,” noted one veteran GOP lawmaker after Wednesday’s upheaval. The Republican member was speaking of former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), known as “The Hammer” by Republicans and Democrats alike. “DeLay would never have brought this thing to the floor until he knew that he had the votes.”
What happened here is that Eric Cantor’s insistence that FEMA disaster aid be offset by slashing a loan program for fuel-efficient cars aroused the near-unanimous opposition of the Democrats. Meanwhile, Boehner’s effort to talk sense to his Tea Partiers fell on deaf ears.
Boehner had tried, unsuccessfully, to rally Republicans behind the bill earlier in the day, warning them in a closed-door conference meeting that the level of spending was likely only to increase if their legislation failed…
…The defeat was a stinging loss for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who pitched the measure to his conference as the lowest spending number they could get.
House GOP leaders retreated to the Speaker’s office after the vote to plot their next move.
The House, of course, has to negotiate with Harry Reid’s Senate, so Boehner can’t respond to this setback by moving the bill further to the right to satisfy his own caucus. He must now regroup and craft something the Democrats will feel like supporting. In the meantime, things are getting urgent.
Unless Congress passes stopgap legislation by midnight on Sept. 30, much of the government will shut down.
“Consider making the disaster relief more robust” in the next bill, said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. “Please talk to the Democrats.”
Landrieu said FEMA Director Craig Fugate told her Wednesday that the agency’s disaster relief fund may run dry Tuesday. That would mean that there’s no money to provide shelter, cash assistance or other help to victims of Irene, thousands of fires across Texas and flooding in Northeastern states.
The fiasco is threatening to delay Congress’ vacation:
“Suffice it to say there’s not going to be a shutdown,” House Minority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, told reporters after the Wednesday night vote that defeated the spending measure he supported. “I think everybody needs to relax.”
The House vote Wednesday was 195-230, with 48 Republicans joining all but a handful of minority Democrats in opposing the short-term spending plan.
Minutes later, House Republican leaders met in Speaker John Boehner’s office to consider revisions to the measure.
In a message to House members, Cantor’s office said the temporary spending plan could come up again Thursday and “members are advised that a weekend session is now possible.”
I don’t know why the Republicans tolerate Boehner’s ineptitude.
