Boehner cries again (and again, and again)

By Raw Story

Incoming House Speaker John Boehner -- already famous for his crying stints -- let the waterworks flow Wednesday as he assumed the Speaker's chair from outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

ABC News reports that Boehner broke out in tears no fewer than three times during the ceremony on Capitol Hill -- once as he walked down the aisle to applause, again as Pelosi read her introduction, and finally as he took the podium.

And Boehner was apparently not alone -- his relatives teared up too, AP reports.

It is known to bug Boehner that he can't keep it together at big moments, but apparently it runs in the family. At the moment Pelosi transferred power to her successor, at least six hankies had been deployed by Boehner's proudly weeping family members watching from the gallery overhead.

For her part, Pelosi took a jab at Boehner for requesting an oversized gavel for his role as Speaker.

"I now pass this gavel, which is larger than most gavels here, but the gavel of choice of Speaker Boehner, I now pass this gavel -- and the sacred trust that goes with it -- to the new Speaker," Pelosi said.

The speakership caps a remarkable rise for Boehner, whose office regularly peppers reporters with accounts of his hardscrabble early life as the second of 12 children in a working-class family from Ohio -- 10 of whom watched from the House visitors' gallery as he took the oath of office.

Boehner has led House Republicans in lockstep opposition to Obama's policies, notably his signature overhaul of US health care, which the new speaker has vowed to target with a symbolic repeal vote on January 12.

As speaker, and backed by Republican committee chairs, he will enjoy vast powers to shape the agenda in Washington and hamstring the White House through to Obama's reelection campaign in 2012.

But with Democrats still in control of the Senate, and Obama still holding a veto, the Ohio lawmaker will have to harness his considerable deal-making powers to enact key parts of the Republican platform.

Republicans have vowed to slash spending, scrap "job-killing" government regulations, overhaul the tax code, crack down on undocumented immigration, cut diplomatic and foreign aid funds, and investigate the administration.

Obama and his Democratic allies, meanwhile, have attacked the dapper, perpetually tan-looking golf enthusiast as a consummate political insider and key architect of the economic policies that fostered the painful recession.

During an early September visit to Boehner's home state, Obama blasted the lawmaker as having "no new policies" and "no new ideas" and peddling "the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place."

House Republicans Still Can’t Name Any Programs They Would Cut To Pay For Bush Tax Cuts

By Pat Garofalo

During this campaign season, many Republicans were loathe to lay out any spending cuts that they would make in order to offset their desire to extend all of the Bush tax cuts. Extending the entirety of the Bush tax package would cost nearly $4 trillion over ten years, including about $830 billion to extend the cuts for the richest two percent of Americans alone. House Republicans, though — including Pledge to America architect Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) — simply said that they would cut discretionary spending across-the-board to offset that cost. “The line item would be across-the-board,” McCarthy asserted.

Even though election night was upon them and a new majority secured, House Republicans weren’t any more willing to lay out specific spending cuts last night. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that the most important thing that Congress can do is extend the Bush tax cuts. But when Matthews pressed her for spending reductions, Blackburn only named parts of the budget that she has deemed off-limits for cuts. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) did the same, refusing to name a specific cut in two separate interviews. Watch a compilation:

Contrary to one of Blackburn’s assertions, defense spending is part of the discretionary budget. The Sustainable Task Force — composed of Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and some of the nation’s leading defense and budget experts — has identified nearly $1 trillion in waste that can be cut from the defense budget over the next ten years by simply eliminating unnecessary Cold War-era programs.

Blackburn and Cantor seem to be under the impression that there is nothing that matters in the non-defense discretionary portion of the budget. But that portion of the budget includes all federal education funding, some veteran’s benefits, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Secret Service, federal highway funding, the National Park Service, the Coast Guard, and Congress itself.

Will House Republicans be reducing all of those across-the-board? It isn’t likely, which means that that they will have to make even deeper cuts to some programs to achieve their desired savings. Of course, they could just be confirming that they agree with Sen. Mitch McConnell’s pronouncement that giving tax breaks to the rich is deficit spending that Republicans support!

See The Wonk Room for a list of potential progressive spending cuts that could be made.

GOP Rep. Joe Barton Admits Republicans’ Agenda Is ‘A Little Bit Short On Specifics’

By Ben Armbruster

On his Fox Business show this week, host Neil Cavuto appeared worried that Republicans may be too confident about their chances of taking control of the House and/or Senate this November. “Allay me of that anxiety that Republicans are getting ahead of themselves,” Cavuto told climate change denier and former BP oil spill apologist Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX). While Barton agreed that the GOP may be measuring the drapes a bit prematurely, Cavuto wondered what the GOP would actually do if it won control of Congress. However, the Texas Republican admitted his party doesn’t have much to offer:

CAVUTO: I get a sense from Republicans collectively that they’re just already starting to dine on a feast three weeks early. And…when I get a sense from them about what they’re going to be doing day one without offering many specifics about the day one, besides getting back to 2008 spending levels, without addressing how you’re going to go back to those levels, I think they realize the better part of valor, is no specifics?

BARTON: Well, you know, we may be a little bit short on specifics.

Watch it:

Of course, Barton eventually offered up the standard GOP platitudes about repealing the new health care reform law. “Well, have you bounced that off John Boehner?” Cavuto asked, adding, “because he has not been very clear on this repeal effort.”