[BREAKING] Boehner to House GOP: Vote against the stimulus.

But, hey, remember: “I won.”

Or, as Heritage put it, “The Pelosi-Reid-Obama Debt Plan”. Anyway, Politico reports:

President Barack Obama is coming to the Capitol this afternoon to curry favor with congressional Republicans. But it appears GOP leaders have already made up their minds to oppose his $825 billion stimulus plan.

House Republican Leader John A. Boehner and his No. 2, Whip Eric Cantor, told their rank-and-file members Tuesday morning during a closed-door meeting to oppose the bill when it comes to the floor Wednesday, according to an aide familiar with the discussion. Boehner told members that he’s voting against the stimulus, and Cantor told the assembled Republicans that there wasn’t any reason for them to support the measure, according to another person in the room. Cantor and his whip team are going to urge GOP members to oppose it.

In a nod to the president, Boehner did point out that this is the third time that Obama has met with Republican leaders, compared with the zero meetings they’ve held with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — a now-familiar refrain from Republicans in the House. But Obama’s diplomacy clearly isn’t buying any votes yet.

(H/T: Instapundit) Apparently, “I won.” counts as diplomacy these days.

Below are some of the offered GOP amendments to the The Pelosi-Reid-Obama Debt Plan:

*AUTHOR*	*DESCRIPTION*	*ACCEPTED/REJECTED*
Camp	Strike “Making Work Pay,” reduce the 10% and 15% individual income tax brackets to 5% and 10%, respectively, for 2009 and 2010.	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Herger	Add an above-the-line deduction for heath insurance premiums	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Johnson	Exempt unemployment benefits from income taxation in 2008 and 2009.	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Brady	AMT Patch for 2009	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Ryan	Make permanent the dividends and capital gains tax rats and index the latter for inflation.	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Linder	Add a GED / training requirement for those getting extended unemployment benefits	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Brown-Waite	GAO study of impact of COBRA provisions on employer costs	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Davis	$7B transfer from federal to state unemployment accounts to prevent state payroll tax increases	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Reichert	Prohibit HIT money from being spent until interoperability standards are in place	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Boustany	Prohibiting Medicare from using comparative effectiveness research to restrict access	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Heller	Extending homebuyer tax credit through 2009, allow it to be claimed by anyone purchasing a primary residence (as opposed to just first-time homebuyers), and require buyers to have at least a 5% down payment to get the credit	REJECTED One Democrat supporting
Roskam	GAO study to assess success of program in creating private sector jobs	ACCEPTED
Herger	Conditions Health IT funding on providers giving patients additional price transparency	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Johnson	Strikes the HIT funding provisions and replaces it with tax incentives	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Brown-Waite	Remove the provision requiring states to make permanent changes to their benefit eligibility rules to be eligible for a temporary transfer of federal unemployment funds	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Davis	Increase to $5,000 the cap on tax credits for individuals purchasing energy efficient property (windows, furnaces, etc)	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Boustany	Strike the HIT privacy language and replace with a report	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Boustany	Strike the HIT privacy language and replace with a report	REJECTED No Democrats supporting
Johnson	Allow seniors to opt out of Part A of Medicare	REJECTED No Democrats supporting

…and that’s some impressive bipartisanship there, huh? As one of my colleagues noted, a lot of this would have been fig leaves – and I’ll note in semi-response that House Democrats didn’t seem to even care about acquring any. No wonder the House GOP did an alternate stimulus plan; no wonder Cantor’s going to do a whip-round against the current mess.

And, hey: no wonder that the White House is currently yelling at Pelosi to get the freaking contraception money out of her monstrosity. Even this administration can see a rhetorical club when it’s heading so directly towards its head, and accelerating…

Crossposted on RedState.

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