Plans C, D, E and F
Posted by Jennifer Rubin on December 21, 2012 at 9:00 am
The House Republicans have joined the White House and Senate Democrats in the “don’t know how to govern” department, none of them coming up with a plan that can pass either body, let alone both. GOP aides on Capitol Hill seem genuinely baffled as to what comes next. Here are some possible scenarios.
Plan C: The White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) cook up a putrid bill (from conservatives’ standpoint), including tax hikes (in excess of Clinton-era rate hikes for the rich) and phony cuts. Reid jams it through the Senate. House Democrats announce they will support it unanimously, and the House Republicans are forced to swallow it or allow everyone’s taxes to go up.
Plan D: Reid and Obama can’t come up with anything to pass the Senate. They agree to extend the tax rates and hold off on the sequestration for 90 days, continuing to torture the entire country.
Plan E: Obama and House Speaker John Boehner reach a deal that a minority of House and Senate Republicans could support but that will command near unanimity among House and Senate Democrats. By definition it is worse than anything a majority of Republicans could agree upon.
Plan F: Boehner and the president return to the bargaining table. But now Boehner is in a worse bargaining position since he can’t provide enough votes to pass the House. They therefore jointly craft a bill that is less acceptable to the Republicans than prior offers but can gain the support of Republicans. (The notion that the president after last night’s fiasco will be compelled to move closer to Boehner is, well, fanciful. He has his foot on Republicans’ necks and he is not about to let up.)
There are probably some other scenarios, but, truth be told, there are no good ones. And if this is bad, imagine how horrendous the debt-ceiling talks will be.
Sure would suck if they had to stop funding terrorists to pay for all the undeserved welfare cheats.
Instead, they will cut SS without any plan to fix/replace it, raise taxes and spend MORE on Foreign aid to everyone but Israel.
And some on the right will call it conservative.
Plans C, D, E and F
Pretty much sums it up. We can either try to triangulate the dems or get steamrolled. The reality is taxes are going up and spending will not be cut in a meaningful way. No daydream will change those facts on the ground.
It seems the Tea Party Caucas chose to jump under the bus. Speaker Pelosi won’t care why.