QotD, A Somewhat Uncomfortable Question edition.

Philip Klein:

Ever since John Boehner’s “fiscal cliff” backup plan went down in flames on Thursday, there’s been a flood of speculation as to whether he can still survive as speaker of the House. But there’s a very fundamental question that a lot of people floating this possibility need to address: Why on earth would anybody want the job?

Right now, I wouldn’t take the job on a bet myself.  Thanks largely to what turned out to be an absolute disaster of a 2012 Presidential campaign – and, don’t forget: I expected that we were going to win the damned thing, too – we’re not in a good situation right now.  Sorry to write that, but it’s true.  Personally?  I would have passed the damned full extension, permanently linked the AMT to inflation, given Big Medicine the Hawaiian Good-Luck Symbol by killing the doc fix, partially paid for it all by capping the home mortgage deduction at 200K and ending deductions for state/local income taxes, dropped the mike, and gone home.  They’re going to hate us anyway, so we might as well.

You nodding at all of that?  Guess what: nobody in their right mind would elect me Speaker of the House.  Hell and damnation: I couldn’t even manage to get elected to the House in the first place.  Double, secret Hell and damnation: I wouldn’t vote for me.  I’m a rhetorical bomb-thrower, not a practical politician. What I just outlined would start another recession, and possibly lead to a debt downgrade on the spot – and while I am perhaps ready to let that happen, and perhaps so may other people out there, my position is nonetheless one unburdened by any sort of actual responsibility.  So while I am not convinced – to put it mildly – that John Boehner has done as well as he could have, I am still forced to admit that he’s probably doing a better job than I would.  And until we have somebody in the House of Representatives who is actually willing to openly challenge Boehner for the job, that’s got to be my standard.

That this would require no small amount of political courage is rather the point.

(H/T: Hot Air Headlines)

3 thoughts on “QotD, A Somewhat Uncomfortable Question edition.”

  1. Some general comments. Fixing our financial situation is going to cause a recession, and quite probably a bad one, if it’s done over a short enough time for it to actually happen. You simply cannot cut spending by a third without getting some contraction. The Democrats will never do this. If the Republicans do this, they will pay a huge political price, so they won’t either. Given these constraints, it’s obvious we’re just going to go until the bubble pops, and then probably have a decade-long or more Depression again. At which point the Republican base will blame their own politicians for not having stopped things, and the Democrats will not. Is this going to happen next year? Probably not. Within 5 years? Maybe. Within 10-15? Almost 100 percent certainty.

    1. Maybe the Republicans are lucky that Romney wasn’t elected. Had he been President, the bubble might have burst in his first or second term, and the Democrats and their Accomplice Media would have pinned *ALL* the blame on the harmful, immoral policies of those evil RethugliKKKans. He’d have given his party a worse reputation than Herbert Hoover.
       
      Of course, they’ll still have that problem if they win in 2016 and the fit hasn’t already hit the shan.

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