Fiscal Cliff Deal Passes House: Could Speaker Cantor Be In The Future?

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Eric Cantor, Fiscal Cliff, GOP, John Boehner, Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan, politics, Republicans

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Yes, America’s tiring soap opera has reached the end of its run (well, sort’ve).  Fiscalcliffmas ’12/’13 is all but a memory in what became an exercise in legislative futility.  Now the fact that some type of a deal has been passed puts a likely end to all future discourse regarding tax rates but a few fights remain on the horizon with spending cuts, the debt ceiling and sequestering both in America’s future.

There are plenty of places to discuss and read about the pros and cons of this deal.  The extension of unemployment benefits is a good thing for us progressives but to others the fact that “only” $600 billion of new revenues was generated is fairly frustrating.  President Obama campaigned on $1.6 trillion, bumped down to $1.2 trillion as Speaker John Boehner asked for $800 billion.  The end game was less than Boehner’s negotiated spiel.

But after the failure of the so-called “Plan B” deal before it even hit the floor, the eyes of the nation have been focused more on the soap opera that is Republican leadership.

Boehner has been embattled over the course of his tenure as Speaker.  After taking over for Nancy Pelosi following the 2010 midterm elections, Boehner’s legacy appears to be rather unimpressive.  His goals have appeared to be erratic and inconsistent and the 112th Congress’s main “successes” have been futile appeals of the Affordable Care Act and obstructionism of every single proposed bill the Democrats have proposed.

Now it should not be a shock to anybody about the actions of Boehner’s Congress.  After being trounced in 2006 and 2008, the Republicans were left reeling as President Obama rode a wave of public disapproval of the Republican Party and his own surging popularity.    Yet that all failed and while the Republicans obliterated the Democrats in 2010, they still wound up short of taking the Senate and the Oval Office.

So what do they do?  They obstructed which is a fairly easy thing to do when you own a majority of the House.  But laying underneath their unified obstructionism emerged a sparring over what to do afterwards.

The eventual answer was nothing.

Yet the one biggest highlight, other than the obvious of the bill passing both the Senate and the House, appears to be the quarrels going on in the House Republican leadership.

It’s not very common to see the Speaker of the House vote on a bill that is taken to the floor.  Usually that’s reserved for fairly big deals.  Tonight though John Boehner voted “YEA” on the bill to avoid the fiscal cliff.  That is noteworthy for this very other cause.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor voted “NAY”.

Now it’s no real secret that John Boehner and Eric Cantor are two different politicians, even if they have accomplished virtually the same thing.  Boehner is much more laidback in his leadership styles and often appears to be detached from the proceedings. Cantor on the other hand is a lot more poised and is a very ambitious politician that seems to have keen political senses.

Boehner is one that would possibly entertain the idea of bipartisan compromising even though he appears to be quite lacking in the ability of gaining his own party’s approval for most deals.  Cantor, not so much.

Eric Cantor appears to be trying to tap into the disgruntled Tea Party bastion of the Republican Party to drive Boehner out of his role as Speaker of the House.  The same bastion that Boehner gladly hugged and touted when the Republican Party was sensing blood-in-the-water over the Democratic Party in the 111th Congress.

But if Cantor is really going to try and vie for dismissing John Boehner, he’s going to have to do it with a bit of help especially when it comes to leadership if tonight’s vote is of any relevance.  Paul Ryan, who co-authored the book “Young Guns” with Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, voted “YEA” on the bill.  McCarthy, another ambitious young politician, also voted “NAY” and could be a powerful ally for Cantor.

Remember McCarthy, Ryan and Cantor were all invited (and conversed) with conservative pollster Frank Luntz to discuss ways to return the Republican Party back to power.  It’s worth noting that Speaker Boehner did not have an invitation sent his way.

Also of note, voting for the Speaker is not like voting for an election.  The House votes for a leader and it’s not who gets the most votes (for those secretly hoping for a return of Pelosi to the seat due to a fractured vote) but the one person who gets a plurality of the vote.  So it would be a fairly courageous thing for Cantor to do, but then again, the past few weeks Cantor has been a bit of a rogue when it comes to the Republican Party.

Is it likely we see Speaker Cantor?  I’d say no and it would take Boehner’s retirement or some scandal to emerge for that to be a better possibility.  Nonetheless though, we have seen the continuation of the Republican Civil War when it comes to the House GOP.

I think it’s also safe to assume that future battles are just another bill taken under hostage away as well.

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“I Got Laid Off”

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Democrats, Eric Cantor, Fiscal Cliff, John Boehner, Liberal, politics, Republicans, Welfare

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I always say this and sometimes I sound like a broken record when this topic comes up. I don’t like bringing too much of my family life into this blog as it’s not about them.  They might occasionally read this blog and are likely aware of its existence but I always found it to be rather unfair to them to write behind their backs.

However, certain times I feel the need to relate my life to almost use as a segue into what is actually going on in the world of politics.

I’ve written about this before so I will hurriedly catch everyone up into the past few years of my life.  At the beginning of my junior year of high school, the car dealership (a GM one) my Dad worked at for almost 20 years (or slightly over, barely can remember the exact figure) announced it was closing in May.  Thanks to the then-struggling auto industry, this wasn’t a huge shock to my family and we were rather prepared for the news that broke.

No worries though, my Dad was highly experienced, well-connected and had another job lined up at another GM dealership.  About two weeks after the closing of the old dealership, my Dad made the longer commute to the new one.  The travel was slightly weary, as it was a 45-minute drive, but at the beginning of my senior year, we were covered.

Then the car dealership’s owner went through brief financial difficulties and the newer employees had to be let go and that unfortunately included my Dad.

So here we were, a family struggling along with the rest of the nation with the youngest (yours truly) having collegiate ambitions.  My Dad then had to make the choice to file for unemployment benefits.

My Dad would find another job, this time one that had to see him work nightly (often from 5:00pm till 2:00-to-3:00am) with a maintenance company as a supervisor and a cleaner.  It wasn’t a pretty nor glamorous job but it was one that could (barely) pay the bills but I was in college and life continued.

The stress of the nightly job clearly weighed down my Dad.  The nature of the job required heavy-lifting and it was making its physical and emotional damage.  There was a case of plantar fasciitis, problems with the boss, and the late hours were just almost too much.

Yet we still carried on and I was even able to help out the company by doing some small summer part-time jobs that helped me pay for my books, my housing and even my running shoes.

However today the bottom fell off.  My Dad was laid off again.  I got the news immediately following my run.

Now, we’ve been down this rodeo before so it’s not like we are facing the great unknown by re-applying for the benefits we were sure to be done with.  But that’s how life works, even when you know what you are facing, you are never quite sure what’s happening next.

My Dad though is applying for jobs and immediately jumped back into the job pursuits. Sadly though, I’m sure any one of my conservatives friends would call my Dad “lazy” or “a welfare queen” by doing what he possibly could to help out his family.  We have yet to receive a single check from the government but what if my Dad doesn’t immediately get a job?

Families across the country however are in far worst shape than we are.  Just go anywhere and ask anyone you know and you will hear stories from what it really is like on the unemployment line.  No, we aren’t savagely guffawing as we fist-bump each other and saying “thanks” to the “hard workers” across the country for giving us their hard-earned money.  We are not yet suffering at all, but soon we might be.  Or we might not.  Who knows?

I’ve made it my new life mission to dispute the stereotypes that surround welfare, the unemployed and the working class.  We are all in this together after all.  I will be (finally) graduating college this next December and look forward to making my own income while eventually maybe starting a family one day.  I know it won’t be easy but that day is coming and I have to admit the government played a role in that.

No, we aren’t subjecting ourselves to the “nanny-state” mind complex.  It’s not that simple.  I see it as a family man doing something to earnestly help his family and immediately trying to rise above the “assistance”.  My Dad will find a job somewhere and eventually, we won’t have to be living this way.

But this new development in my life definitely puts a sour taste in our mouths when you consider the so-called “fiscal cliff” discussions.  Yes, we are all sick of it and the ad nauseam reporting of it can drive a normal person bonkers.  Is there anything more irritating than hearing multi-millionaire representatives, who are essentially being bankrolled by billionaire SuperPACs, debating the taxes for those making $250,000 per year?  Granted, I know some of those families and they are good, hard-working people.

Still my face is cherry-red from the slaps my face is receiving.

If we don’t receive a deal to stop us from going over the so-called cliff, then families across the board will have a tax increase.  For families such as my own, we simply cannot afford that.  Sure we have about a week or two before we really start feeling the effects of falling off the cliff.  But can we stop playing hardball over people’s incomes who have taken enough of a beating?

It’s not just taxes, Medicare, and Social Security that’s on the table it’s people’s livelihood.  It’s the student who may not be able to go to college due to his families suffers, the small business around the corner that may not be able to handle the lack of business or the newlywed couple who just started their lives together that might be hurting.  It’s you, me and us that are going to eventually feel some pain.

Yet Speaker Boehner may not totally feel that way.  Of course, one thing that matters to a congressman that will later (likely) be some corporate lobbyist and that’s his job and his legacy.  The American public has been held hostage by not just the Tea Party but the establishment figures that have no idea what to do with the people that they once eagerly brought in with open arms.

John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, Tom Price, Kevin McCarthy; you name them, they are doing this to us.  Of course, President Obama may be in this boat as well too but it’s damn near impossible to negotiate with a group that’s not willing to concede on any of its failed talking points.

But just remember, when it comes down to it; it’s us who will suffer from this.  Not them.

As Plan B Fails, House GOP Bails

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Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Eric Cantor, Fiscal Cliff, John Boehner, politics, Republican Party

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News broke within the hour that the so-called “Plan B”, the Republican proposal to solving the so-called “fiscal cliff” crisis, did not even go up for vote tonight.

Speaker John Boehner of Ohio called a special conference at 7:45pm tonight to try and whip his party to at least pass what would’ve been a largely symbolic vote.  When his pleas fell upon deaf ears; the GOP packed up their things as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia announced the House would reconvene following the Christmas holidays.

The failure to even get Plan B up for a vote is oddly telling when it comes to the House under Boehner’s “leadership”.  Boehner has had trouble controlling his caucus before but today may very well have been the tipping point that could very well lead to a resignation.  How can Boehner really continue after this massive public relations loss?

The House GOP has bailed out of Congress and it has to be amazing news if you so happen to support President Barack Obama.  Besides the 2010 mid-terms and killing various forms of legislation, the only GOP “wins” when it came to legislative success was the oft-repeated repeals of the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (“ObamaCare”) that were almost less than symbolic if it were possible.

How much longer will this charade of leadership continue?  The Republican Party took a beating when it came to the November election cycles but still tried to wield their clout over the past month as negotiations have repeatedly gone nowhere.  As of now, the Democratic Party has to be sitting pretty and now would be the time to propose a tax hike for families earning more than $250,000 and maintaining Social Security and Medicare while slashing the defense budget.

Boehner can not control the Tea Party Caucus nor can he get major initiatives passed.

So maybe Speaker Eric Cantor will be seen shortly.