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Carolyn Kaster / AP
President Barack Obama acknowledges House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio while speaking to reporters in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Nov. 16, 2012, as he hosted a meeting of the bipartisan, bicameral leadership of Congress to discuss the deficit and economy.
By Karoun Demirjian (contact) 
Friday, Dec. 21, 2012 | 2 a.m.
House Speaker John Boehner’s admission Thursday night that he couldn’t pull together enough votes to pass his “Plan B,” and his subsequent dismissal of the House until after Christmas, means there are now only three ways this whole fiscal cliff fiasco could go down.
• President Barack Obama and Sen. Harry Reid could successfully insist the House hold a vote on their bill to raise tax rates on incomes above $250,000, and hope Boehner can persuade a few dozen Republicans to vote yes alongside Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats.
• Obama could tweak and resubmit his fiscal cliff offer to Boehner, in the hopes of bringing a slightly more even-handed coalition of House Republicans and Democrats together.
• Or we could just go over this cliff.
However it turns out, though, one thing seems certain: After Boehner’s swing and a miss with the House Thursday night, Reid’s comparative political stock stands to rise.
“Everybody’s talked about Boehner and Obama cutting this deal, but Harry Reid’s the third man,” said Eric Herzik, a UNR political scientist. “And Reid’s advantage is, he can deliver votes.”
Reid and Boehner have been locked in a protracted arm-wrestling contest over fiscal policy for the past two years. For that entire duration, the crux of their policy war has been a dispute between the role of tax revenues versus spending cuts in enhancing economic solvency and deficit reduction.
But this week, that became a war within the Republican Party.
The week opened with Obama making an offer to hold tax rates steady up to $400,000 in income, inching slightly closer to the Republicans from his initial insistence that cut tax rates only be frozen up to $250,000.
Boehner, knowing and telling his Republican caucus that after the election they would have to compromise and make a deal, bet that he could strengthen his bargaining hand by pushing for a bill to hold tax rates low up to a million dollars, even over a presidential veto. After all, Democrats had supported a similar measure before, and had spent the entire election cycle talking about “millionaires and billionaires” paying their fair share. It was to them Boehner’s bill addressed tax changes.
Had Boehner been able to muster support in his caucus for such a seemingly reasonable move, he might have been able to strengthen his bargaining hand with the president heading into a final week of negotiations. So he scheduled the vote.
But instead, he came up too short to see it through.
“The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass,” Boehner said in a statement Thursday night.
In defense, he reverted to the Republicans’ regular stance on taxes versus spending cuts, arguing that the House, with its previous votes to extend all Bush tax cuts combined with a Thursday evening vote to divert sequestration cuts away from the military, had done its duty.
“The House has already passed legislation to stop all of the Jan. 1 tax rate increases and replace the sequester with responsible spending cuts that will begin to address our nation's crippling debt,” Boehner added. “The Senate must now act."
But that isn’t where Boehner started the night. And so Reid’s team, which always maintained that raising tax rates for the wealthy was an essential part of avoiding the fiscal cliff, is all but claiming a psychological win already.
“It is now clear that to protect the middle class from the fiscal cliff, Speaker Boehner must allow a bill to pass with a combination of Democratic and Republican votes,” Reid’s spokesman said in a statement.
If Boehner does turn to Democrats in the House for support, it would be a significant political victory for them. Though in past crises, Boehner has willingly solicited Democratic support — e.g. for 2011’s debt ceiling deal — he has never had to make the overture before proving he has support within his own party for his counteroffer.
“[Walking away] is a message to both Obama and to his conservative troops,” Herzik said. “Boehner’s saying look, these are the people I have to deal with to put this together, so Barack you gotta give me more. But his message to his troops is, you guys want to go down this path? Fine. I’m going home. You work it out.”
But even if Boehner proves unwilling to turn to Democrats — it is a potentially risky move for a guy who has to retain his Speakership in a few weeks — going off the cliff won’t necessarily rub off badly on Reid. Whereas in the past, he was Boehner’s counterpart at the negotiating table, this time, he isn’t directly in the line of fire to get blamed for the failure of negotiations.
“Reid’s strengthened because he doesn’t have to spend any political capital; this is just Obama and Boehner,” Herzik said. “Harry Reid can call a news conference and criticize folks, but has he had to do any heavy lifting so far? No ... he gets to enter the next round completely fresh.”
Polls also show the public will blame Republicans for an economic crash, a fact that Republicans who were ready to vote for Boehner’s Plan B says reveals the true intent behind what they see as Democrats’ unwillingness to bend.
“Comfortable in the belief that the House will be blamed if we go over the fiscal cliff, the president and the Senate majority can stick to their bargaining position,” said Nevada Rep. Mark Amodei, who planned to vote with Boehner Thursday night. “Let’s quit misrepresenting the facts to the people of America. It has become increasingly clear that a slow walk over the fiscal cliff is the preferred outcome for the White House and the Senate majority.”
But cliff or no cliff, if public opinion is swinging in their direction, there is little incentive for Democrats to abandon their positional advantage and acquiesce to the Republicans’ demands as they have done in lame duck sessions past (i.e. 2010).
With the president’s favorability numbers higher than they’ve been since 2009, an inauguration on the horizon and four more years of his presidency to go, there’s too much else for them to lose by backing down.
I am glad our TeaPublican legislators have packed up and "Gone Home for Christmas"! NO way were TeaPublicans going to vote for a measure that would prevent automatic tax hikes from taking place for all BUT those individuals making more than $1 million! We got Boehner and his team to give up on their own plan! They completely backed down! Bahahahaha! Boehner threw a lot of TeaPublicans out of leadership positions and we sure showed him a thing or two for doing that! We TeaPublicans WILL say YES to cutting social security increases, YES to cutting Medicare, YES to cutting Medicaid and YES to cutting heating assistance! And we WILL say "Not no, but hell NO" to any tax increases to the wealthy! Whether you like it or not, America remains a Golden Rule country. Those that have the gold, those that work hard for everything they make, get to make the rules. That's the way it works in America! President Bush: "This is an impressive crowd--the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base"! Never would we TeaPublicans vote for a tax increase on the wealthy.... on our base!
The SUN says "President Barack Obama and Sen. Harry Reid could successfully insist the House hold a vote on their bill to raise tax rates on incomes above $250,000, and hope Boehner can persuade a few dozen Republicans to vote yes alongside Nancy Pelosi's Democrats"
What we learned is Conservatives will not roll over on fix that WILL NOT FIX THE DEBT CRISIS
The non vote last night shows Conservative will not go along with a bad deal
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The SUN says "Obama could tweak and resubmit his fiscal cliff offer to Boehner, in the hopes of bringing a slightly more even-handed coalition of House Republicans and Democrats together."
Obama and Democrats campaigned for two years on $800 billion in revenue on the back of the 2% of job creators AND $2,400 billion in spending limits for a total of $3.2 trillion.
At least that is what Obama knowingly lied about during the debates with Romney, in campaign ads and on the stump. Because Obama wants a bait and switch scam mini bargain of $1.4 trillion in tax and $400 billion in spending cuts - a gross distortion of his campaign promise.
The new post-election Obama sham plan will NOT SAVE AMERICA.
The New post-election Obama scam plan will not address the AMERICAN DEBT CRISIS.
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Or the SUN recommends "we could just go over the Cliff"
This has been the goal of Obama and Democrats from the beginning
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Heads ARE going to roll! Yes they will be rollin', rollin', rollin' on the Potomac river! RINO Rep. LaTourette (R-Ohio) head will be one of them for defending Boehner's Plan B: "It weakens the entire Republican Party"It's the continuing dumbing down of the Republican Party, and we are going to be seen more and more as a bunch of extremists that can't even get a majority of our people to support our own polices that we're putting forward!" I can't believe LaTourette doesn't thing Boehner should be replaced: "It's like saying the superintendent of an insane asylum should be discharged because he couldn't control the crazy people. That's nuts!" How dare LaTourette say we TeaPublicans ARE insane, nuts and dumbing down the Party! And that guy Boehner couldn't even get his plan past his own caucus! It was a "No Confidence" vote on Boehner! We just neutered him! Boehner is toast! And we will also make sure LaTourette NEVER holds a leadership post in our Party! We TeaPublicans WILL pick Eric Cantor as the new Speaker of the House! It will be a wonderful Christmas present to America!
Non-Fox media is not doing their jobs if Obumma/Reid get the blame. Maybe they'll get new kneepads for christmas.
Enjoyed the article.
Just wanted to point out that the only people who gain anything at all in the court of public opinion are....the Tea Party.
Due to what happened yesterday, it is confirmed.
Speaker Boehner is not in charge anymore.
There is open rebellion within the Tea/Republican Party.
On one side you have the Tea Party, which is a magnificent attempt by the Republican Party to re-create themselves and change their brand. They have smelled power, and they are wanting it badly. But the way they are going about it is hilarious. They are running a protest movement within the Republican Party.
On the other side, the mainstream Republican Party cannot do anything anymore. Moderation is smacked down, spit on, kicked around and threatened with continual neverending primaries.
I am now convinced that, for America to get anything done, within the time span of at least the next two years of this 113th Congress, you have to just ignore the House of Representatives. Carry on without them. Because they are just as effective as a soup sandwich.
The Tea/Republicans are in turmoil. That will never get fixed. And the rage and dysfunction is so monumental that they have absolutely no willingness to reach across the aisle to work with the Democrats in the House AT ALL.
Only thing we can do is just stand back. Forget the public opinion. It's not going to fix the Tea/Republican Party.
The only thing that will fix anything is for the continuation of the Tea/Republican Party to be ripped to shreds, pounded into dust and then blown to the four winds.
Not from outside influences. They are doing this all by their lonesome.
They are in self-destruct mode right now. Incapable of even performing the simplest legislation.
Having said that, I do encourage the above commenter, TeaPublicanPatriot, to continue with that rhetoric. Music to my ears. Please bang the cowbell louder. That's what makes the song better. And it will speed up the disintegration of the entire Tea/Republican Party.
I gotta feeeeeeeee vahh. That's what makes the song. REALLY bang on that cowbell. I GOTTA HAVE MORE COWBELL, BABY!
Rest in peace, Tea/Republican Party. You are in the death throes. It just started yesterday with this act of complete and utter political lunacy.
President Obama will win this battle because he is much smarter than the Republican Leadership. The television face of Republicans is a tanned old guy with no new ideas who is desperate to make a deal to save his job.
The problem is spending, the debit and not the amount of taxes we pay, something no one is talking about or reporting on. The real culprit is the president who will not deal with the spending but, he will get credit for what the outcome is.
Republicans should dump Boehner as Speaker and start over.
As a legislative veteran I have seen this type of situation before. Speaker Boehner may be the leader of his party in the House, but more importantly he is Speaker of the House, not just his slim majority. A great speaker will round up the twenty votes he needs from his caucus and ask Rep. Pelosi to hold the Democratic caucus firm and run their 400K compromise through. Pelosi will have to hold her acerbic tongue and not demand any more than what OB has on the table. A failed speaker will continue to obfuscate, delay and, much worse, fail to control his caucus. If the latter, Speaker Boehner must resign his post. Neither legislative body can function with leaders who cannot enforce party discipline. LBJ could provide some guidance here.
Pat Rat, based on the flawed logic of your rant, Pinky should resign from the Senate since he has been an abysmal failure.
I do not is any way want the above mentioned comment to even remotely insinuate that support the Speaker in any way, shape or form. I just don't think Pinky has clean hands in this fiasco.
Mar says "President Obama will win this battle because he is much smarter than the Republican Leadership."
If Obama wins America loses - Simple and to the point
The choice is Democrats get a political win and America loses - or we actually attempt to slow the increase in spending and save America form the debt crisis
The GOP clowns that gave us the eight-year, trillion dollar Iraq debacle as well as the Great Recession has done it again.
In a horrific scene Friday on Capital Hill a mob of mindless tea zombies ripped John Boehner's manhood from its sack and stomped on them, triggering his crybaby reflex and sending the neutered speaker home for the holidays an orange, weeping wreck.
The gang of old white males that can't walk and chew gum at the same time is showing America why it can never again be trusted to perform even the most basic duties of an elected official.
Frankly, none of them... they all put us in this predicament. Then again we must accept some blame as well, because we kept sending the same people to do what we wanted... give us $5 worth of gov't services, but only charge us $2.
As we go about unraveling this tangled mess though, the Tea-baggers look the worst, with their "No, No, No" mantra. But as long as the mad, old white people are alive (and Fox is broadcasting), they'll vote in unison and sadly remain a force.
Good news is the younger folks are starting to realize they can affect the outcomes and it's their future at stake.
Smartone, you mean the young people who think its "cool" to vote for a guy who tweets?
You have lost your mind.
The "old white guys" are just as bad as the young "cool" crowd.
We don't need more voters who only vote for their interests. We need people to put their big boy pants on a do the right thing.
POTUS: Total lack of comprehension or arrogant insistence on the cliff.