It’s hard to know how to react to the latest calculated blast from John Boehner:
House Speaker John A. Boehner defined the GOP’s terms for raising the legal limit on government borrowing Monday, demanding that President Obama reduce spending by more than $2 trillion in exchange for an increase big enough to cover the nation’s bills through the end of next year….For the first time, he signaled that Republicans would come to the negotiating table with the expectation that the White House and Senate Democrats be prepared to discuss major reductions in federal spending — and enact them immediately. That’s a sharp shift from Republicans who just last week talked of finding “commonality” on less-ambitious measures.
….The extent of Boehner’s demands was unclear.
That last sentence is the tell. Unless Boehner is proposing his $2 trillion in savings to come over 20 years or so, he has to be targeting Social Security and Medicare. There’s no way to save that kind of money otherwise. So what’s his proposal? Answer: he wants “honest conversations.”
I’ll bet he does. What he really wants is probably simpler: he wants President Obama to propose something. Boehner may be talking big because otherwise his tea party base will feed him to the dogs, but the last couple of weeks have made it pretty clear that he doesn’t have the stomach for putting the Republican name to a concrete proposal to slash Medicare. That hasn’t worked out so well for him. Much better to have Obama put his name to it instead.
Whether Obama will be willing to do this is unclear. There’s really no reason he should since he holds all the cards and knows that eventually Boehner has to cave, but he’s already indicated that he’s willing to compromise and Joe Biden is already leading negotiations with congressional Republicans. So maybe he is willing to put his name to something and save Boehner’s bacon. If he does, though, I sure hope Boehner gets him a nice Christmas gift this year.
