John Boehner Quotes
Everything comes at a price and I’m going to use the debt limit to extract things out of you that I would not otherwise get.
Boehner’s Republicans controlled the House of Representatives. However the Democrats controlled the Senate and Obama, the president, was a Democrat. So while Boehner could block any legislation, he could not pass legislation that the Republicans wanted. So the speaker resorted to the tactic of holding for ransom import legislation unless the President and the Democrats would pass legislation that the majority of the public and the Democrats were against. In this case it was the debt ceiling limit. The United States spends money authorized by Congress and then has to pay the bills. When the country is growing, the government has to borrow money in order to meet its obligations and pay bills. Congress must authorize the increase in the debt limit. Boehner held the debt limit hostage until Obama would agree to spending cuts that were unpopular with the majority. A problem for the Republicans with this strategy however was that the government would not have enough money to pay the regular bills and the government would have to slow down. This was considered a most unpatriotic thing to do and one would put the United States full faith and credit at risk. Republicans justified it on the grounds that spending money as the government was doing was worse and therefore it requires extreme measures. This was not the only occasion where a political party put its ideology ahead of the welfare if the nation as a whole. But in those few past occasions the party doing this was not overt about it, and could never be accused of blackmailing. What made this quotation remarkable was that it was the first time that the politician was very explicit about the blackmail strategy. President Obama actually caved in a bit and compromised and reduced spending so the debt ceiling was raised. Earlier, President Clinton had the same tactic tried on him but he let the Government shut down, and after a few days, The political heat on the Republicans were so great that they had to raise the debt ceiling and reopen the government.
John Boehner, U. S. Congressman (Republican, OH), Speaker of the House, Statement to President Barack Obama, 2012
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The President had cut some programs that were Congressional favorites:
In 2012 the Republicans controlled the House but not the Senate or the White House. As the nation grows, the Congressionally voted budgets have implications and the budget ceiling has to be raised to balance the two. That had always been a bipartisan process over the life of the nation. However, the Republicans in the House decided that they would hold the debt ceiling legislation hostage to pressure the Senate and the White House to pass legislation that the majority of the Senate and the President thought was bad for the country. Krugman advised the President and the Senate to resist giving in to this blackmail even if the debt ceiling was hostage to their demands.
The Republicans who had control of the House of Representatives were reaching the end of the fiscal year and had not yet passed a budget nor expanded the debt ceiling so the government would have to shut down in a few days and a little later America could not pay any of its bills. They had a very strong position if they willing to blackmail the Democratically controlled Senate and the Democratic President. But the last time the Republicans had ever tried this before was the Republican House when Gingrich was speaker and they shut down the government for almost 3 weeks. It cost the Republicans the next election’s majority in the House. President Obama decided that he would not set a precedent of negotiating with a house of Congress that was threatening to shut down the government or threatening not to pay the nation’s bills which Congress had already authorized the purchase of.
As the Majority Leader of the House, Eric Cantor had to resolve conflicts and for coalitions that will compromise to get anything done. However, the Tea Party movement didn’t want any compromises even if it meant shutting down the government and defaulting on the national debt. They ran against conservative Republicans in the Republican primary elections campaigning that the incumbent made and facilitated compromises with Democrats. In some districts like Eric Cantor’s there were enough primary voters who agreed. Terry was explaining the message that the other conservative politicians received.
Many critics of the neoconservatives like Perle observed that if we were negotiating with friends and allies and they made demands or exacted a high price for what we wanted, this was viewed as diplomacy and give and take was appropriate. But when states which were not friends and whose government we did not approve of, made demands or exacted a high price for what we wanted, this was viewed as “blackmail” and should never be acceded to. Negotiations with those states those became extremely difficult if neoconservatives were controlling or influencing the negotiating tactics and strategy.
See Henry Clay for an earlier expression of this point.
In 2007 the Republicans, who were in the minority, began to use the filibuster to a degree that it had never been used. Within the single year of 2007 Republican’s filibustered 62 times, doubling the highest rate that had occurred before. A small minority of senators were able to block legislation that easily passed the House and was supported by the majority of senators and in some cases supported by the overwhelming majority of the American Public.
Hollings who was one of the senior experienced senators was offended by the degree to which the George W. Bush Administration and the Republican leadership had turned to lobbyists to draft legislation and amendments to pending legislation. Lobbyists often have specialized information that members of Congress do not have, so there has been in modern times communications between lobbyists and members of Congress and their staffs. However, during the Bush Presidency the practice reached an extreme where lobbyists would even write the legislative language and give it to the members in whom they had invested by giving them large campaign contributions and many perks. K Street is the fanciest street in Washington DC with some of the most expensive office space. A substantial proportion of the lobbyists have K Street offices, hence the metaphor.
Explaination of why he threatened to block Senate approval of an appointment he favored in order to achieve another political objective.
Paxon himself was one of the ‘whips’ responsible for doing this for the Republicans when he was in the Congress.
John Andrew Boehner is an American politician who served as the 53rd speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he was the U.S. Representative for Ohio's 8th congressional district from 1991 to 2015. The district included several rural and suburban areas near Cincinnati and Dayton.
