Taking a break from the pressing issue of contraception, the House looks at a highway bill and can’t do shit:
In navigating the measure, however, the Speaker has confronted a familiar dilemma. Faced with conservative concerns over the price tag, he has been forced to choose whether to double down and win over the right, or to make changes that could gain Democratic support. In this case, Boehner has lost not only Democrats but a sizable chunk of more centrist Republicans from urban and suburban districts.
The reason he lost the urban/suburban Republicans is because Teabaggers stripped out mass transit funding, since Madison, Hamilton and Washington didn’t ride light rail. Boehner knows he’s in trouble:
“The American people entrusted us with the majority in the House. What we do with it us up to us,” he said. “We can use it to take steps together, one at a time, toward the vision we share. Or we can do nothing. We can squander the time we’ve been given … allowing our internal disagreements to paralyze us.”
Only the soft bigotry of low expectations would let someone think that passing a highway bill, the most bog standard piece of everyday legislation, is an indicator that the House isn’t paralyzed. Boehner knows he’s doomed to repeat 1948 and his suicide caucus won’t let him do anything about it.
Poopyman
I won’t shed a tear for the self-destruction of the Republican majority, but I will for all the poor bystanders caught in the collapse.
Egg Berry
The American people didn’t entrust them with shit. The only office “the American people” vote on is the President.
c u n d gulag
Now you evil clowns can’t pass a highway bill?
This is a HIGHWAY bill, fer Christs-sake!
Cars, folks – CARS!
I know you hate choo-choo trains, unless they’re Randian ones.
But cars?
But I suppose that squandering’s the best we could hope for from this Congress.
So, squander away, Boner-boy!
amk
Karma is a beeyotch boner. As a fucking leader, you could never control your loons. Now it’s payback time.
Carbon Dated
The Fountainhead Fanboys can’t pass Highway Bill because this one could fund over 7 million (!) new jobs, and as everyone knows, the government can’t create jobs.
JMG
Due to the apathy and ignorance of the electorate, the Republicans will maintain their majority until there’s a Republican President, and they run the whole show into the ground hard enough so that folks notice.
Kirbster
They believe things will be better when President Romney sells the entire interstate highway system for pennies on the dollar to a consortium of Arab oil sheiks and Malaysian gambling syndicates, fronted by an American shell corporation headquartered in the Cayman Islands. The deal will be brokered by Goldman-Sachs. Because private toll roads are always better than tax-supported public roads. FREEDOM!
PeakVT
The current House Bill is a really, really bad piece of legislation.
On top of that, it basically zeros-out all transit funding.
I think the best outcome would be for Congress to pass a one-year extension and then try again after the election.
ETA: The drilling revenues would be on top of revenues from the gas tax, which hasn’t even been adjust for inflation for 18 years.
rikyrah
Orange Julius is incompetent at his job
Nutella
@PeakVT:
So you’re saying the Tea Party can’t even pass a Tea Party bill? And the best we can hope for from this Congress is nothing.
Well, nothing except more and more extreme actions to punish women for the terrible sin of being women.
I hope at least that their Democratic challengers and the DCCC can make a lot of noise about how much these clowns are paid and how little work they do. A comparison of workloads between the Boehner house and the Pelosi house would be useful.
PeakVT
@Nutella: The bill is so bad Boehner has lost the
left sideless right-wing side of his party. At this point he can either 1) pass a different bill with Democrats and less kooky Republicans, and then lose his speakership next week, or 2) not pass a bill and then lose his speakership in November.General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Jesus dint need no stinkin’ Highway Bill
maya
I’m surprised they didn’t think of a Highway Bill that would be constructed only through the use of chain gangs and funded by rebel flag license plate sales.
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
Can we stop referring to Boehner as the leader of anything now? Cantor’s been calling the shots in the House since 2010.
Davis X. Machina
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero): Actually he did — and John the Baptist got the contract. (Gotta keep those construction jobs in the family.)
Schlemizel
In many ways the best we can hope for from a GOP controlled house is for them to squander. I pray to the great Pasta in the sky that sane people regain control this fall (though, as is the norm for me, my confidence that this will happen is absent) and we can start getting the government back on track to doing the things we need it to do & away from doing things it shouldn’t.
Then may the blessing of His many meatballs rain down on us all, surly we shall dwell in marinara and parmesan all the days of our lives.
Steve in DC
I wouldn’t say it’s because of some fealty to Washington in their heads it’s worse than that.
A good portion of the right has viewed mass transit as government control of your life. A car is freedom to go where you want, when you want. Mass transit involves control over where and when you can go somewhere. There are tons of hysterics over this and it’s truly nuts. But many of them are convinced of some dark horrible future where the freedom to drive where you want is gone and you’re funneled from place to place on mass transit where the government is now in completely control of where you can go.
There is another side as well. Depending on the locality, a lot of rich people simple don’t want the ruffians to reach them. We deal with this sort of crazy all the time on the metro here. And it’s not limited to Republicans, it’s bipartisan. People simply don’t want people from the hood in their area. So you’ll get yuppies screaming at the top of their lungs to get the subway expanded to the airport, but don’t you dare put a stop in their neighborhood because the ruffians can get there.
different-church-lady
That’s the tell — he thinks they’re going to lose the house.
Comrade Dread
Has anyone done any prognostics on what the likelihood of a House turnover will be?
Anoniminous
@Comrade Dread:
Probably. But they aren’t worth spit this far from the election.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@different-church-lady:
T’would be nice. But he may be using “we’ve” as a polite cover for “I’ve”, as in that Boehner realizes that his time as speaker is almost up one way or the other, it is only a matter of time before he and his fellow Girondists are purged by a purer set of revolutionaries waiting in the wings, with Cantor playing the role of executioner.
Or, what Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity at #15 said.
Unsympathetic
@maya:
And a value-added tax on Skoal.
Karen
I admit, I’m ignorant when it comes to some history but what exactly happened in 1948?
Mnemosyne
@Karen:
That’s the year that Truman successfully ran against the “Do-Nothing Congress.”
NobodySpecial
@Comrade Dread: I’ll do one.
Somewhere between 90% and 100%.
Seriously, Obama coattails everywhere plus dumbfuck Reps getting voted out = flip.
Ken
@PeakVT:
So they’re going to tax corporations to pay for the government? Won’t that destroy the economy?
OzoneR
@NobodySpecial:
the problem is district lines. Depends on how many he can win in the first place.
Chances are, there are 52% Obama districts that will elect Republicans and a dozen or more seats where Democrats come within hundreds or thousands of votes of winning, simply because of the way the lines are drawn.