The Great Renege: Boehner Backs Out of Debt-Limit Deal

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Weeper of the House John Boehner confirmed today that he is not a man of his word and, as he has demonstrated from the day he took the gavel in the House, that he is the weakest Speaker of the House in modern American history. As the Rachel Maddow Show has documented rather convincingly, John Boehner is really bad at his job.

Talking Points Memo's Brian Beutler reports Boehner Backs Out Of Debt-Limit Deal:

House Speaker John Boehner lent his full support Thursday to undoing a key part of the debt-limit deal he struck with President Obama and the rest of the congressional leadership last summer.

Republicans in the House, Boehner confirmed, will advance legislation to replace automatic cuts to the defense budget from taking effect on Jan. 1. Those cuts are part of an enforcement mechanism he and a majority of his members agreed to accept, but that would only be triggered if Congress was unable to pass a significant deficit-reduction bill. They included the defense cuts, intended to force GOP cooperation and domestic-spending cuts, intended to force Democratic cooperation.

The GOP’s unwillingness to accept higher tax revenue doomed that effort, and so the automatic cuts — known technically as “sequestration” — are locked in. Now Boehner and the GOP are accelerating efforts to undo the one part of the deal that they don’t like.

“We should never have had the sequester,” Boehner told reporters at his weekly press availability Thursday. . . That’s why the House will act this spring to replace that [defense] sequester."

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Republicans have been moving in this direction for some time. But they now have full buy-in from the speaker of the House. Only a few months ago, Boehner said he felt bound by the deal he struck with Obama.

At a background briefing for reporters earlier this week, senior Obama administration officials lambasted the GOP and its leadership for breaking faith with the debt-limit deal, and suggested it will have implications for any future negotiations the White House conducts with Republican leaders in Congress.

A man's word is his bond… unless his leadership position is held hostage by Tea-Publican radicals. Worst. Speaker. Ever.