Boehner Did Not Rule Out Tax Revenues to Prevent Sequestration

In an interview the day after the debt ceiling deal was reached in 2011, the House speaker acknowledged it was possible to avert the automatic cuts by raising taxes.

Pete Marovich/ZUMAPress

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


In recent days, as $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts—a.k.a. sequestration—have neared, Republicans have tried mightily to depict this indiscriminate slashing as President Barack Obama’s doing (while also accusing Obama of fear-mongering regarding the cuts’ recessionary impacts). They have gleefully asserted that it was the White House that first suggested sequestration as a means to resolve the debt ceiling impasse created by GOPers in 2011. But their accusation has been undermined by a fact recently highlighted in multiple media accounts: When they passed the sequestration bill, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the top GOPers in Congress, each accepted sequestration as it was designed—that is, as a legislative doomsday machine that would force a so-called congressional supercommittee to come up with a deficit reduction plan to supplant these deep across-the-board cuts in defense and nondefense spending.

But there is a GOP fallback claim: The sequestration-defusing plan cooked up by the supercommittee was not supposed to have any tax revenue hikes in it. Consequently, the Republicans maintain, Obama is disingenuous now to call for side-stepping the sequestration with a “balanced” approach that includes spending cuts and revenues. Indeed, Boehner and other GOPers crowed at the time that the debt ceiling deal did not include any tax hikes. Yet the deal Boehner approved did nothing to limit the supercommittee to considering only cuts for a sequestration-ducking plan. The legislation did allow for the possibility of revenue boosts. In a fact sheet, the White House was explicit on this point, noting the supercommittee would ponder “both entitlement reform and revenue-raising tax reform.” And Boehner essentially acknowledged that at the time.

In an interview in his Capitol Hill office with CBS News’ Scott Pelley, on August 1, 2011, the day after the last-minute debt ceiling compromise was crafted, Boehner boasted, “When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the White House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I’m pretty happy.” Talking to Pelley, Boehner showed no concern about the sequestration and didn’t blame Obama for it. Moreover, he did not say revenues were out of bounds for the supercommittee:

Pelley: If this supercommittee that you talk about recommends raising revenue, can you support that?
Boehner: We’ll see what it does. But I’m confident their focus will be on reducing expenditures coming out of Washington.
Pelley: Can you image Republicans backing increased taxes?
Boehner: I think that would be a stretch. It doesn’t seem likely to me that that would be recommended, much less supported, but I’ve been surprised before.

Certainly, Boehner did not endorse what obviously would be the Democrats’ position in the coming supercommittee deliberations: more revenues. But he did recognize—if only theoretically—that this could be part of a final plan. In fact, his statement to Pelley, which was no knee-jerk expression of opposition to revenues, could be seen at the time as sign of flexibility. In the immediate wake of the deal that averted a national default—before any members of the supercommittee were named—Boehner was acknowledging the possibility that the supercommittee could produce a compromise with revenues.

Six weeks later, Boehner did make news when he gave a speech and declared that he and his Republican comrades would not support any supercommittee proposal with increased revenues. Only cuts in spending and entitlements could be considered, he asserted—not even such tax reforms as closing loopholes.

At that point, Boehner was tacking back to GOP-friendly waters, as the next round in the debt wars was starting. (And, not surprisingly, with Republicans saying no to any new revenues, the bipartisan supercommittee soon failed to reach an agreement.) Yet when Boehner had cut the deal, he neither bemoaned the sequester nor ruled out the possibility that Obama and the Republicans would avoid these ham-handed cuts with a deficit-reduction package containing some increase in tax revenues. As they try to blame Obama for the looming sequestration and insist that the president is playing dirty by urging a sequestration escape plan with revenues, Republicans are demonstrating hypocrisy or amnesia—or maybe both.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate