In a way I feel bad for John Boehner. At the moment he is in quite the unenviable position of having to answer to the tea party when it comes to the budget. Since a large number of the Republicans who were elected during the last midterms were supported by the tea party Boehner has to at least try to keep them satisfied in order to keep the House come the 2012 elections. Tea party affiliated candidates such as Paul Ryan claim that they want astronomical cuts. Ryan said he has a plan that would cut $4 trillion although the details of it have been vague at best. No such plan would likely get out of the House and it certainly would not survive the Democrat controlled Senate. Yet Boehner has to keep folks like Ryan happy if he wants tea party support in 2012 even though they are simply not going to get the cuts they want.
But does the tea party really want those cuts? I’m not so sure. I have a feeling that a shutdown of the government is exactly what the tea party wants. After all, they have been denouncing government and all it stands for over the past two years so having it shutdown sounds like a dream come true for them. A Pew Research poll said that 68% of tea partiers would rather the government shutdown than have their candidates give an inch. Now unless they are totally divorced from reality, which is possible, they have to know that the cuts they want aren’t going to happen.
Perhaps then lawmakers like Paul Ryan and Rand Paul who are very popular among the tea party crowd are playing quite a smart game by being sticklers about budget cuts. They know their supporters are government hating folks who want a 0% tax rate for the rich (slight exaggeration but only slight). If the government shuts it will seem like a victory. The big evil machine has been stopped! Break out the questionable signs with possible racial overtones and take to the streets in victory!
So where does this leave poor John Boehner? Nowhere good. If he knows anything about political history then he knows a government shutdown will be bad for him and the Republicans who won in independent districts. He’s going to have to pass a bill that a lot of his more right-wing lawmakers dislike and may not vote for. Last month Boehner submitted a budget bill which included a lot of cuts to the budget and it was passed by the House but voted down by the Senate. However, in the House there were about 50 Republicans who did not support their majority leader’s bill. Who? You guessed it, the tea party crowd.
But maybe I shouldn’t feel too bad for John Boehner. He and the Republican Party aligned themselves with the tea party, an organization that was driven by fear and anger, in order to win the 2010 midterms. It worked. The problem? The Republicans, always a very cohesive party, is now quite fractured and John Boehner is not in a position where he will be able to please everyone. Or possibly anyone.