No good deed goes unpunished
by digby
That old trope has been truer than among today's GOP. Just look at what the right wing is doing to old wingnut warhorse John Boehner:
The Tea Party Leadership Fund has spent almost $320,000 on voter communications opposing Boehner and backing Winteregg. The fund’s chairman, radio host Rusty Humphries, said the group interviewed a number of candidates before deciding to back Winteregg.
Winteregg “reminds me of a young reformer back 24 years ago,” he said. “There was this guy John Boehner who was going to reform things; he was going to change things. Boehner hasn’t been doing the job that the people of Ohio sent him there to do. They sent him there to be a strong conservative voice.”
I might see this as a clever pressure strategy if it weren't so obvious that they really believe this. They think John Boehner is a sell-out.
Now it's true that he's failed to pass a law requiring kindergarteners to be armed and he came up short on getting the ban on condoms and oral sex (for women only --- they aren't completely nuts) through the Senate. The fact that he isn't in the Senate just further proves what a failure he is.
But let's take a look at the numbers, shall we? Here's John Boehner's greatest achievement since he became the speaker in 2010:
The four major pieces of deficit-reduction legislation enacted since the fall of 2010 were the Budget Control Act of 2011, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 (also known as the Murray-Ryan deal), and this year’s farm bill.
Altogether, they cut projected deficits over 2015-2024 by $4.1 trillion: about $3.2 trillion from program cuts (including the associated interest savings) and $950 billion from higher revenues (again, including the interest savings).
Look at how they did it:
Now it's true that many Democrats ended up voting for these budgets and our Democratic prsident signed them, sometimes under duress but sometimes calling it a big victory as well. But the fact is that under a Democratic administration and a Democratic Senate,the House, led by John Boehner, has successfully slashed the living bejeezuz out of federal programs on an unprecedented level. The House of Representatives held the line and a Democratic majority made up of just enough timorous centrists, helped them do it.
So ok, maybe that's not enough. They want to start putting Occupy protesters in Guantanamo and give Western ranchers Yellowstone as reparations for the decades of disrespect they've been forced to endure from bureaucrats sending them a bill. And Boehner failed to get that done for them which I'm sure is a big disappointment. But he's solidly moving their austerity ball down the field step by step.
More here ICYMI.
