Wonder if Ruth Marcus, the writer of this piece, got her talking points from the successor of Journolist, or whether she leaned over to the next cubicle and got them directly from Spence Ackerman and Ezra Klein.
I was at a luncheon today with House Minority Leader John Boehner at which just about every question for the Ohio Republican started the same telling way: If you become speaker.... The striking thing about Boehner's answers at the lunch, sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor, was how little of a positive program he presented. The Republican agenda as sketched out by Boehner was more of an absence of Democratic policies than the implementation of Republican ones.
I've noticed that myself. Where's Newt when you need him?
| It's like immigration reform: First close the borders... |
He did say that Republicans would have more to say in September, after spending next month checking in with voters. "You have to listen before you outline an agenda, and we're listening," he said. For the country's sake, I sure hope they hear something worthwhile. Because what Boehner offered up was pretty unconvincing.
| Of course, our journalist was prepared to be unconvinced. And she believes her readers share her viewpoint. |
Asked the first three things he would do as speaker, Boehner rattled off a list that added up to Not Being Democrats.
The first: "repeal Obamacare," which Boehner described as a "giant impediment" standing in the way of job growth. Except... President Obama won't be signing that repeal even if it were to pass the House and Senate.
Deny the People, O, and run on that in 2012!
| Political positioning for the presidential election in 2012. This keeps the issue front-of-mind for the next two years, instead of it quietly fading into the way things are done. |
Second, "no cap-and-trade.... You raise the cost of energy, you raise the cost of doing business." Except... no cap-and-trade legislation appears to be on its way, Republican House majority or not.
Sez who?
| And the Republicans get to take credit for it. That sure stinks for the Democrats. |
Third, "not raise people's taxes," because "you cannot get the economy going again" without "giving people some certainty about what their taxes are going to be." Except... much as Boehner & Co. would like voters to think otherwise, the only question is whether the Bush tax cuts will be extended for everyone, or for almost everyone (other than those making more than $250,000 a year.)
This is the WaPo...
"On Election Day, if we win the majority a lot of the uncertainty is going to go away," Boehner said. That, he said, "will do more to help American employers than anything we can do."
Except... what part of the massive uncertainty? Boehner mentioned another going-nowhere-fast proposal, "card check," the labor-backed measure to make it easier for unions to organize, and another not-disappearing-anytime-soon measure, the just-signed financial services reform bill. Hard to see how having a Republican House - or even a Republican House and Senate - would change either of those situations.
It's better, no doubt, for Boehner and his party if the election is, as he put it, "a referendum on the job-killing policies that are coming out of this administration and my colleagues across the aisle." But voters are entitled to hear more from the man who would be speaker - and to hear it before Election Day.
| Keep pushing back the tide, my dear. The exercise is good for you. |
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