As expected, Ohio Rep. John Boehner was elected speaker of the House.
In his opening remarks, Speaker Boehner said:
Let us now move forward humble in our demeanor, steady in our principles, and dedicated to proving worthy of the trust and confidence that has been placed in us. If we brace ourselves to do our duty, and to do what we say we are going to do, there is no telling what together we can accomplish for the good of this great and honorable nation. More than a country, America is an idea, and it is our job to pass on to our posterity the blessings bestowed to us.
I wish you all the very best. Welcome to the people's House. Welcome to the 112th Congress.
I am sure Democrats and late night comedians were disappointed that Boehner did not break down and cry as he delivered his remarks.
Against all odds, a former small business owner who grew up with 11 siblings in a two-bedroom house and one bathroom is in control. Boehner should tell Democrats and assorted haters:
It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to Cry if I want to, cry if I want to You would cry too if it happened to you
The cloture vote ended the visions of amnesty that danced in the heads of illegal immigrants and their parents who knowingly broke the law.
The backdoor path to citizenship would have been a Christmas present for millions of illegals, and a nightmare for American taxpayers and legal immigrants who play by the rules.
You’ve heard of “comprehensive” reform? DREAM is non comprehensive reform. It doesn’t even have the basic enforcement provisions—employer sanctions and fancy new ID cards—that were part of the earlier, failed “comprehensive” bargain, which wasn’t a very good bargain (in part because nobody was sure the enforcement schemes wouldn’t be immediately undermined by lawsuits from the same organizations who supported “comprehensive” reform). DREAM is all amnesty, no prevention. Maybe that’s because its backers care about amnesty but not prevention.
Senate Republicans, along with five Democrats, blocked Reid’s nightmarish effort to make undocumented immigrants Illegal immigrants and their advocates happy.
I am not a fan of Howard Fineman, but he is spot-on in noting the Tea Party Congress is in session:
The new, more Republican Congress won’t arrive in town until next month, but the Tea Party Era unofficially began on the Hill Thursday night.
Republican leaders in Congress, blindsided by grassroots fury over the tax cut deal they made with President Obama, are now scrambling to show their allegiance to the anti-federal, anti-debt movement.
The GOP brass, led by Senate party leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), did so tonight by eagerly backing the successful efforts of Tea Party favorites to block debate on a $1.1 trillion “omnibus” spending bill that would fund the entire federal government until next October -- but which contained billions of dollars in “earmarks” Republicans, including McConnell, once stoutly defended.
The omnibus bill also contained the spending priorities of the Obama administration and the soon-to-be-ended Democratic-controlled Congress.
Fineman added:
But Reid announced Thursday night that he didn't have the votes he needed to block the maneuver or ensure debate after the reading of the bill. The reason, he said, is that nine Republicans who initially promised to support him had changed their minds.
Game, set, match Tea Party.
After being demonized as racist and “un-American,” tea partiers are now in charge.
In the wake of Republican National Committee Chairman (for now) Michael Steele’s announcement that he will seek a second term, Republicans have started talking and telling everything they know.
We fired Pelosi so let’s increase our resources and strength to take back the Senate, elect new governors, and ultimately a principled Republican leader to serve as President of the United States. United, we can make a difference for America and its future.
Like a rooster who takes credit for the sunrise, Steele claims credit for Democrats’ shellacking in the midterm elections.
His engaging manner on TV was one of his attractions as a chairman two years ago. It quickly went sour. Steele doesn’t have the discipline of a party operative. Whether it was lashing out at Rush Limbaugh or calling Afghanistan “a war of Obama’s choosing,” his gaffes distracted from the work at hand. Meanwhile, the $20,000-apiece corporate speeches, the Regnery book, and the accompanying media plugs all gave Steele, fairly or not, the whiff of the political profiteer.
Likewise, his tactical choices seemed at times driven as much by personal exigencies as by party priorities. In September, with midterms kicking into high gear and every piece of data indicating that Republicans could make substantial incursions into key blue districts, where was Steele? Speechifying and fundraising in Guam — no doubt in part because the party committeemen of Guam and other U.S. territories in the Pacific and Caribbean broke heavily for Steele in 2008. A similar calculus could explain why Steele sent $20,000 from his state parties’ budget to the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, which has no voting members of Congress, zero electoral votes, and a population roughly the size of Scranton’s.
[...]
Steele’s poor performance as chairman has had one fortunate side effect — it has created a robust field of alternatives. It gives us no pleasure to say this, but none of them would be worse than Steele, and we believe any of them would be better. Someone else deserves a chance at the top of the RNC.
At Friday’s press conference, Rep. Barbara Lee reiterated the message that “the overwhelming majority of Congressional Black Caucus members are opposed to the current tax plan.”
CBC Chairwoman Lee said:
We’re extremely concerned that the cuts that could be made should this package pass would disproportionately hurt the poor and low-income communities and further erode the safety net. We don’t want to create a situation today that will exacerbate the conditions for Americans who are already hurting. That would be unfair and would be unwise.
The CBC unveiled an alternative tax cut plan that includes:
A 13-month extension of Emergency Unemployment Insurance Benefits plus additional assistance for the chronically unemployed – those Americans who have been unable to find work for more than 99 weeks.
A payroll tax holiday or equivalent payment, such as a tax rebate check, with guarantees that Social Security will not be deprived of revenue.
Targeted tax relief through a 2-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for hardworking middle- and low-income families and extending the enhanced provisions included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit.
This is going to cost close to a trillion dollars. Now, you know where those cuts are going to come from next year? It’s going to come from initiatives that support the working poor, low-income communities, communities of color. It’s going to go right to the safety net, and so there is no way that the majority of the Congressional Black Caucus could support such a hit on the majority, really, of the American people.
We have done our work on behalf of the American people, and in no way, mind you – in no way – should we give billionaires and millionaires tax breaks, and in no way should we allow the deficit to continue to grow, because we know who’s going to pay for it. It’s going to be our communities.
Gil Scott Heron was wrong: The revolution will be televised. House Democrats’ revolt against President Barack Obama’s tax-cut deal is generating wall-to-wall TV coverage.
In a nonbinding resolution, the House Democratic Caucus voted to reject the tax compromise. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the proposed tax deal will not make it to the House floor without changes:
In the Caucus today, House Democrats supported a resolution to reject the Senate Republican tax provisions as currently written. We will continue discussions with the President and our Democratic and Republican colleagues in the days ahead to improve the proposal before it comes to the House floor for a vote.
Democratic priorities remain clear: to provide a tax cut for working families, to create jobs and economic growth, to assist millions of our fellow Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and to do this in a fiscally sound way.
For progressives and gleeful Republicans, it’s must-see TV.
