Here's a sample of the doublespeak Boehner has to deal with from within his own party. Rep. Tim Huelskamp on CNN an hour ago.
Posted by
Max
Oct 15 '13, 16:52
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OutFront: Obviously we just heard Dana reporting there isn't going to be a vote tonight, that this was the Speaker's last olive branch to people like you. Did you reject it, were you going to vote against John Boehner?
Huelskamp: I was going to vote against the bill, it raised the debt ceiling again with absolutely no spending cuts which has been par for the course in Washington, DC, but obviously the real issue is that twenty four hours ago we heard that Harry Reid was going to send a bill out, that of course has not happened. They haven't sent anything out for fourteen days, the President doesn't have anything on the table but I just think most folks realize that October 17th is not the drop-dead date - there are no payments due for a couple weeks - but it's time to get our act together and move forward on facing the fundamental problem of spending too much money.
OutFront: So do you think Speaker Boehner doesn't deserve to be speaker anymore?
Huelskamp: Well he is speaker and we'll probably come in tomorrow and continue to discuss, but Harry Reid cannot pass anything through the Senate, the President is not proposing anything. The President has a great opportunity. He's said no no no no for fourteen days, he's had months to get ready for October 17th, he has no plan. I'm guessing we'll sit down tomorrow in the House and come up with a plan that will hopefully be a short term debt ceiling and give us a little more time to address these issues. But at the end of the day, Obamacare is a massive drain on the economy and is going to create massive deficits - that we have to face that as well
OutFront: But what I don't understand is it sounds like you're saying the same thing that you were saying a couple weeks ago, five days ago: that you want to extend the debt ceiling but Obamacare's gotta go. We all know that Obamacare isn't going to go, so, at any point, you're going to have to vote for or get outvoted on a deal that doesn't include getting rid of Obamacare. I mean, that's the reality, right?
Huelskamp: Well I don't know if that's the reality. Most Americans agree with me and the House Republicans that members of congress shouldn't have special exemptions from Obamacare. That should be a done deal.
OutFront: But John Boehner put that in the bill that you said you were going to vote no to, it got rid of those exemptions.
Huelskamp: That was part of the bill, there were many parts of that as well. But this idea that Harry Reid and the president like to talk about, that Obamacare is the law of the land, they provide exemption after exemption after exemption. So we agree that Obamacare has to be changed, the question is is the president willing to treat the rest of Americans as he treats big businesses. It's a fairness issue and we've been discussing that for two weeks. We look forward to Harry Reid actually having a vote on that issue, putting his red state Democrats on the line for special privileges for members of congress.
OutFront: I'm just trying to understand, why you would have voted against the bill the speaker had on the table, because obviously that no vote, this getting shot down tonight, could be hugely significant. If it had that fairness issue on the table, that the White House and members of your staff would all all be treated the same as other Americans, dealt with that fairness issue, why would you have voted against it?
Huelskamp: It was going to raise the debt ceiling, and hundreds of billions of dollars-
OutFront: But any deal is going to have to raise the debt ceiling, sir.
Huelskamp: The deal we tried to offer a few weeks ago suggested, no, we could raise it a few weeks, but not to raise it until next year and another three hundred, four hundred billion dollars of debt, that's unacceptable. Americans want to face this problem, and the problem is not that we can't come together, it's the problem that folks don't ever want to cut spending, which is why you have to raise the debt ceiling. That's the real issue here, and the president has no proposal, he does not want to reduce spending, so we're at loggerheads until he's willing to negotiate.
OutFront: So you're saying you'll vote for a bill that extends the debt ceiling for a few weeks, but not for a couple months, that's really all it came down to?
Huelskamp: In exchange for some significant changes and reduction in spending. And the CR debate is about Obamacare, it is a huge hole in our spending. It's going to create massive deficits, about fifty billion more dollars of spending in the next year alone, eight hundred billion dollars in the next decade, and you can't balance a budget, mister president with your brand new entitlement that is unfunded.
(brief argument on Obamacare requiring gutting Medicare to stay funded)
Huelskamp: Again, the debt ceiling is not the problem, the problem is the spending the continues to attempt to exceed our ability to borrow. At the end of the day folks not only in America, but around the world, should be worried about an out of control, too much spending going on in Washington. Again, that didn't start five years ago, it's been going on for decades, now it's time to solve that problem, until pushing it off until February.
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