Posted on 12/04/2014 4:14:58 AM PST by servo1969
Press reports say House Speaker John Boehner will ask Rep. Nancy Pelosi to help him overcome “snowballing” GOP opposition to the GOP leadership’s draft 2015 government budget bill.
Boehner’s draft bill funds the entire government for 2015, but makes merely token efforts to stop President Barack Obama’s agencies from implementing his unpopular amnesty, according to rank-and-file GOP legislators.
That claim of snowballing opposition was boosted early Wednesday evening, when aides to House Speaker John Boehner said they would change their funding bill to reduce the number of months of funding for Obama’s immigration agencies.
Late Wednesday night, the Washington Post reported that top Democrat Rep. Steny Hoyer also said Boehner’s aides had asked him to deliver Democratic votes to ensure passage of the amnesty-funding bill. GOP Rep. Mark Amodei made the same claim to National Review.
Boehner is looking for Democratic help because many of the 234 GOP legislators don’t want to fund the business-backed amnesty. Boehner needs at least 218 votes to pass the bill.
Obama’s amnesty, announced Nov. 21, has blocked the enforcement of immigration law for 12 million illegals, will grant work-permits to five million illegals, will provide government benefits to millions of illegals and will make it cheaper for companies to hire illegals instead of Americans.
“Right now, it is just snowballing opposition,” Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp told The Daily Caller Wednesday.
“Twenty-four hours ago, there was little [opposition] there… [but] more and and more folks are learning the issue and asking ‘Why would I be voting for this?’” he said, citing quiet conversations he’s had with GOP members. “It is hard to put numbers on it,” he said, adding that legislators are responding to their voters’ phone calls and complaints.
In the run-up to the November election, Gallup reported the highest priority for GOP voters was not Obamacare or the economy, but stopping Obama’s planned amnesty.
Boehner promised to fight the amnesty “tooth and nail,” and on Dec. 1 he proposed a 2015 budget plan he said would block Obama’s amnesty.
His 2015 budget plan would provide only four months of funding to the agency that will implement the amnesty. Once the funding runs out, the new GOP majorities in the Senate and House can block the amnesty, Boehner’s deputies promised.
Boehner’s allies say that plan will avoid the “government shutdown” political defeat expected once Obama blocks the spending plan with the anti-amnesty language. The budget plan has to be drafted and approved by Dec. 12.
GOP members say Boehner’s plan can’t actually stop the immigration agency from printing work permits and Social Security cards for millions of illegal immigrants. The agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, can accomplish Obama’s amnesty even without federal funding because it is mostly funded with fees paid by would-be immigrants.
So even if Congress appropriates no money to fund the agency after March 2015, it can use the fees to keep handing out work permits to illegals.
Boehner and GOP leaders can’t stop the agency’s operations once they pass the 2015 budget in December. That’s because they would need to pass a new law through the Senate in 2015, where there will be enough Democrats to block any GOP bill, and more than enough Democrats to sustain the presidential veto of any anti-amnesty bill that does get passed.
The only way to stop the amnesty, say GOP members, including Huelskamp, is to add “rider” language to Boehner’s pending appropriations bill.
The rider language would bar the immigration agency from spending any funds to implement the amnesty for the next 12 months.
The so-called “rider” language is similar to many other funding limitations inserted into the annual appropriations bills — except that Obama’s aides are suggesting he will shut down the government unless the GOP funds his amnesty.
The amnesty will cost a lot of money to implement. On Dec. 3, Sen. Jeff Sessions announced that the administration has secretly made preparations to hire 1,000 people to rapidly distribute work permits to illegals in Virginia.
“This action will mean that American workers, their sons, their daughters, their parents, will now have to compete directly for jobs, wages, and benefits with millions of illegal immigrants,” Sessions said.
Many GOP legislators will oppose Boehner’s budget plan, but only when they’re pressured by voters, said Iowa Rep. Steve King.
“These people in here, when you realize how many don’t come out publicly [against the amnesty] because they may hope to be a committee chair one day, maybe looking for a certain appointment, … they want to stay a little more low-key,” and those members will stay quiet until they’re pressured by voters, King said.
The group of winnable legislators could be up to 50, which is enough to deny Boehner a House majority. That would force him to rewrite his funding bill or rely on Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi to provide enough legislators to pass the bill.
Many conservative or immigration-reform groups are trying to rally GOP legislators against the bill. ”The funding bill is really the only angle” to stop the amnesty, said Michael Steele, the former head of the Republican National Committee.
Boehner “has to put something in place something that aligns the caucus to get the votes he needs… They should have done better,” he told radio host Laura Ingraham.
Boehner’s team is keeping its deliberations secret from GOP legislators, say Huelskamp and other GOP legislators. But his chief whip, Rep. Steve Scalise, has long worked with conservative GOP legislators, King said. “He’s a pretty good guy, you know,” King said.
During the border security issue in July, Scalise worked with King and other GOP leaders to pass a bill that denied funding for an extension of Obama’s 2012 amnesty for young illegal immigrants.
Boehner and team tried to push through a much weaker bill, but many GOP legislators joined King’s group once their constituents called. Eventually, nearly every GOP legislator — including Boehner — voted for the bill developed by Scalise and King.
“That was a similar scenario to this one… some of the [legislators] had been whipped on this [by Boehner’s team], but they went back and told leadership ‘No,’” because of voter pressure, King said.
“If you look at what I thought we had [open] support then, versus what materialized for support after people made the phone calls to their members of Congress, after they got up to speed on the issue… members begin to learn enough, they get educated and they come around,” he said.
That House defunding bill died when Senate Democrats blocked it in a late-night vote.
However, the bill has put nearly all GOP legislators on the record against Obama’s amnesty actions.
In the Senate, four endangered Democratic Senators voted to support a similar defunding bill when Sessions used complex Senate rules to bypass Democratic opposition to any vote.
The Democratic splits shows the GOP may win an amnesty and government shutdown battle with Obama.
The amnesty could become political poison for the Democratic Party because it grants work permits to 4 million low-wage illegal immigrants during a period when Americans’ wages have stayed flat for 15 years, when roughly 20 million Americans are unemployed or have given up looking for work and when more taxpayer funds are being transferred from retirees to unskilled poor migrant families.
Polls show strong opposition to increased immigration and to Obama’s immigration policies. But public opposition to the amnesty is muted by social pressure to support for the tradition of immigration, and by Americans’ reluctance to been seen as critical of migrants.
Private opposition spikes up to nearly 90 percent whenever the pollsters focus on the fairness of forcing Americans to compete against migrants for jobs in America.
The power of that pushback was underlined Nov. 4, when voters in deep-blue Oregon elected a Democratic governor, a Democratic Senator, added Democrats to the state House and state Senate and also voted two-to-one to withdraw drivers’ licenses from illegal immigrants.
Who in h_ll sent the current Republican Representatives to Washington who would vote in this Obama/Pelosi supporter as Speaker of the House. Wonder if the Republican party is changing money in the House for votes or Democrats. They have to get wealthy somehow.
Just called my congressman, Peter King of Long Island and recommended that he vote against anything that supports Amnesty, puts him on the side of Pelosi or Obama. I also reminded him that we’ve had Democrats represent us before and if we wanted a democrat view of politics, we’d vote for one.
He’s generally a big government RINO. What are the odds he’ll actually listen? 0, zero, nil, zip or nada?
They were similarly "butchered" before the election that gave them a majority. If getting "butchered" by the MSM correlates with success, why should they care?
Boehner has to be reelected Speaker formally again in January by the new House. If he aligns with Pelosi, there should be a scorched earth campaign to remove him. Yet, he seems to hold all the levers to caucus loyalty. The GOP has to be terrorized to do the right thing. How to make them perform to defend America is the challenge.
Because the electorate that turns out in 2016 will be different than 2014. The GOP is playing right into the Left's hand if they go for a total Gov't shutdown - It's taken a year to recover from that 'branding' and now you're going to walk right back into the same $#!+ and get branded as 'can't govern' by the MSM, and destined to be a minority party forever.
That’s what I’ve been asking for years....
How do we get Boehner FIRED? What is a process we can implement....now....for January??
“Unbelievable”
I hate to be a spelling nazi but I think you butchered the words “Totally predicted” pretty badly there. Because God knows plenty of us predicted exactly this, warned people, and were roundly shat upon by FR’s liberal wing for it.
He should have lost his election. Thank the Liberal Republicans here and elsewhere that DEMANDED he be sent back so he could do this. Because they KNEW he was going to.
Side note:
Any of the cheshires out there wanna tell me again how his feet are being held to the fire as was promised? Because they arent. Any want to scream ‘purist’ anymore? I should be thankful. This idiot has created a lot of evil purists like me this week alone.
Must be troll season, because they all seem to be hiding...
That traitor bastard needs hangin’.
Precisely.
Nobody is talking about a full shutdown, yet defund a single operation, and the mediots will treat it like the whole enchilada.
If we don't defund those specific operations that allow Zero to incorporate millions of future Democrats... and now you're going to walk right back into the same $#!+ and get branded as 'can't govern' by the MSM, and destined to be a minority party forever.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
This guy is a piece of crap, he campaigned on the issue that he would thwart the Obama agenda. Suddenly he has to pass a bill so he panders to the demoncrats to get it done for Obama. Really Boehner you are a bonehead. Thats it I am no longer receiving the emails for the House Speaker forget it the guy is no better than Obama, a liar
They play by democrats rules because they are democrats. The point of this whole mess is that there is no longer a two party system. There is no lesser of two evils. There is one party and it is tremendously evil. Anyone who doesn’t know that is either a naive, low info voter or one of them.
Beemer is the best dimocrat that the RINOcrats have.
the election is over and their work is done. Most of the A team evaporated directly after. Only the water carriers really have mouthed off since.
Which shows you how utterly lacking in integrity they are. And it also shows you whose side they were ALWAYS on. The Liberals. Remember their names. They will be back after the heat blows over repeating all the same lies from the last three elections to get the fear back into people just in time for the next crisis/election.
Let’s see now...
Some say that if Republicans do not fund Obama’s Amnesty gambit, the Government will “shut down”.
I disagree.
I say that Obama will use his “They won’t act, so I have to!” excuse again. Then HE will set the budgets of each Department and each Agency by Presidential Decree.
Some would say: “But, but, THAT would be ILLEGAL!”
I would answer: “So what? YOU just legitimized that power grab...”
The few who want to rush into a futile battle against Obama without reinforcements, without ammunition and without the vast majority of us “stupid” Americans standing with them, are simply doing Obama’s bidding...
While those few are saying to one another, “Shut Down! Shut Down!” and “Impeach! Impeach!”, Obama is saying to them, often through trolls...
“Please! Pretty please! Shut it down! MAKE MY DAY!”
Got some news for you....They played that game in 08 and 12. You do remember that right? Willard being called a Liar by Obama and Candy Crowley supporting it during a Debate, ring a bell? Willard really fought back on that didn't he. McLoser suspending his campaign because of a budget crisis? REALLY? The same ass that said Nero really was a good man and would be a good President.
The election of 16 will be much like 14 because there won't be a Magic Negro as the Democritter Nominee. What you and most others don't understand that many centrist Democrats are secretly hating what the Rat Party has become under Nero. Just Listen to what Reid's aid and Chuckie Schumer said about it in the last month.
And for crist's sakes grow a pair. Stand up and fight like you stand for something instead of wanting avoid a fight. WE WON the fight last fall. Boner and Post Turtle McConnell gave the victory in the Congress to the Rats. EVEN AFTER THAT the rats got slaughtered in November. THAT IS A FACT.
Our biggest fight is not with the Rats or NERO. It is with the Tories that want to rule the world but don't have the balls to fight for a damned thing. There will always be collateral damage in war. Get in the game. Know your enemies. Hint: they all are kissing Boehner's Ass.
Funny thing, the same little boys that are crying wolf now wanted the Comprehensive Immigration Bill brought to the floor of the House last year.
Same excuse. If you don’t support it the Criminal Invading hoards will hate you forever, you’ll pay dearly in 14.
Hmm, how did that turn out again? It was so important that NERO waited until AFTER the election to act because even the RATS knew they would pay for it at the polls.
I was castigated here by some for advocating voting for the RAT candidate over Boehner.
I was told never to vote for a RAT.
It was a near certainty we would keep the House. Therefore, losing Boehner's seat to a RAT would help destroy a major impediment to stopping the Marxist -- the evil Statist Boehner.
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