John Boehner

The best way to understand why House Speaker John Boehner (R--OH) is in trouble with other House Republicans on the payroll tax extension is to refer back yet again to my experience late last February when I spoke at the first meeting of the House tea party caucus.

The whole story is here for those who didn't read or don't remember it.

If you're pressed for time...two of the most important things I heard at that meeting were that the tea partiers said very explicitly they didn't trust Boehner or Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), and that the biggest mistake Newt Gingrich (R-GA) made in 1995 and 1996 when he was fighting Bill Clinton on budget issues is that he gave-in too early. He would have gotten much more they said had he just held out until the very last minute.

As I've said before, it's hard to see what the tea party folks really meant by "last-minute" given that there were government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 and, technically at least, Gingrich held out beyond the moment when they could have been averted, that is, well after the last minute.

Politico reported this morning that the House GOP rank-and-file are in "full revolt" over the payroll tax cut bill the Senate passed yesterday and that the results of the Monday vote on it are in doubt.

The bill will pass the House as is if there is a straight up-or-down vote because the combination of a majority of Democrats plus a handful of Republicans will provide the necessary margin. This is the same formula that enabled other budget-related measures to be adopted this year when the GOP rank-and-file -- especially the first-termers -- were not happy with the legislation.

The question is whether House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will be allowed by his caucus to do that this time. If the House GOP's anger is as great as Politico says, Boehner may not have that freedom.  Instead, to appease his members, Boehner may need a floor procedure that leads to a conference and, therefore, further negotiations, with the Senate.

House Democrats last night didn't do what they have done so many times before since the 2010 election: they didn't provide the House leadership with the votes it needed to pass a budget bill.

A combination (you can't really refer to it as a "coalition" because they weren't working together) of tea party Republicans and Democrats voted against the leadership-supported continuing resolution and it went down 195 to 230 with 48 Republicans voting no.

This may have been the worst defeat and biggest rebuke ever for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA).  A number of House members told me after the vote that both leaders had worked the vote hard but couldn't convince enough (some thought "any" was more correct) to vote for the legislation.  Two members even told me that Boehner had gone to the congressional leadership equivalent of DEFCON 1 by moving way beyond twisting arms to threatening GOP members with losing their committee assignments -- almost the ultimate congressional punishment -- if they didn't vote for the bill.  Even that didn't work.

Long-time CG&G visitors may recall that My Beautiful and Talented Wife (The BTW) is a professional actor who tends to think of the world in theater terms. As I continued to describe the events of the past few weeks to her, she kept saying that it reminded her of the plot of something by William Shakespeare (or Game of Thrones on HBO, but that's a different post).

The question was which of Shakespeare's plays was most appropriate.

As this article by renowned University of Texas Professor Jamie Galbraith indicates, Much Ado About Nothing might be right.  Given the fact that most of the action took place in July and August and a week or so later and is still hard to imagine, A Midsummer Night's Dream might be correct.  The Tempest is an obvious choice.  And The Comedy of Errors is just too good to pass up without further consideration.

Don't make nonrefundable plans just yet for a vacation under the assumption that the debt ceiling agreement that has been hinted at the past 24 hours is, in fact, a done deal.  

I'm hearing that there is significant opposition from the tea partiers in the House who (1) don't like some (taxes and military spending) of what's in the current deal and (2) think that they can hold out for more concessions from the White House by waiting until Tuesday or Wednesday.  As of now, there's no indication at all that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has the political gravitas with his caucus to simply demand that it vote for any deal.  The same dynamic that forced Boehner to change his plan earlier this week to please the tea partiers is still in place.

House Democrats aren't that happy about the deal either so House Republicans may not be able to count on them to make up for for the tea party missing votes as Boehner seems to have been assuming.

In other words...It's not over yet.