Ezra Klein: Boehner tries to call a mulligan

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/03/boehner-tries-to-call-a-mulligan/


Boehner tries to call a mulligan

Posted by Ezra Klein on December 3, 2012 at 5:15 pm


House Speaker John Boehner is trying to call a mulligan.

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Boehner opens his latest letter by reminding the president that 2012 was “a status quo election in which both you and the Republican majority in the House were re-elected.” That’s technically true and in every other way incorrect. The fact is that 2012 was a Democratic rout, in which Democrats got more votes than Republicans at the presidential, Senate and House levels. Boehner remains speaker because redistricting saved his majority. Nothing more.

That means Republicans are in a far weaker position than they were in 2011. And Boehner knows it. His newest offer is proof. In 2011, it was Obama chasing after Boehner with compromise proposals. In 2012, it’s the reverse.

It is not surprising that Boehner wishes he could go back in time and accept the president’s offer from 2011, or fight for the compromise Bowles outlined before the supercommittee. Those are, from his vantage point today, quite good deals. But elections have consequences, and the consequence of this election is that those offers are no longer on the table.

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One sticking point will be how to get those revenues. Obama has said he won’t sign any proposal that leaves tax rates where they are today. Boehner says Republicans “won’t agree to” any proposal that raises tax rates. Obama has made clear that he considers the 2011 cuts from the Budget Control Act as part of the deal, while Boehner is refusing to count them toward the total.

It’s too early to say how those questions will be resolved. But they won’t be resolved by returning to the Bowles framework from 2011. Unfortunately for the Republicans, there are no mulligans in politics.