John Boehner comes out against the compromise he had been trying to sell one day earlier.
Americans are right to hate Congress with every fiber of their being. The problem, specifically, is House Republicans.
On Friday, House Speaker John Boehner was trying to rally support for the two-month payroll tax compromise hammered out between White House, Senate Republicans, and Senate Democrats, but his fellow House Republicans were reluctant to go along:
Rank-and-file House Republicans voiced extreme opposition to the package during a conference call Saturday afternoon in which Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) briefed them on the legislation and their options to respond, according to two sources with knowledge of the call.
One source said Boehner spoke approvingly of the deal as a win for the GOP but that three other members of the leadership team - Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.), Whip Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Tex.) - all criticized it.
Apparently, Boehner failed to sway his members, because now he says he was against it all along:
“It is pretty clear that I, and our members, oppose the Senate bill,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning.
You'd think that Boehner would be able to rally the 40 votes or so that it would take to join with Democrats in passing the compromise, but even though virtually all House Democrats will support the bill when it comes up for a vote later tonight, House Republicans are expected to vote against it with near unanimity, killing the bill:
The House will vote Monday on a Senate-passed payroll tax holiday bill, adding a new twist to a dramatic year-end confrontation with the Senate and President Barack Obama.
The bill is expected to fail, according to a House GOP leadership aide.
That will bring us back to where we were last week: a tax hike looming for every working family in the country and an abrupt end to unemployment insurance for the long-term unemployed.
House Republicans really are desperate to prove Congress is a completely dysfunctional institutional unable to get anything done for the American public it is supposed to serve. They truly are the worst people in the world. And until they are removed from power, nothing will get better.