Boehner: I’m not open to tax hikes, but I am open to new revenue

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Allahpundit @ Hot Air:

The media’s hyperventilating over this as an early sign that the House GOP has been chastised by last night’s presidential/Senate whupping. (WaPo.com’s front-page headline: “A quick pivot after election.”) But … isn’t this always what Boehner says when asked about a grand bargain?

Republicans are “willing to accept new revenue” to tame the soaring national debt and avert an ugly battle over the approaching “fiscal cliff,” House Speaker John A. Boehner said Wednesday in a speech that offered a potential path to compromise in year-end budget negotiations…

In exchange, however, Boehner said Democrats must not “continue to duck the matter of entitlements,” referring to the rising cost of Social Security and federal health programs, which he called “the root of the problem.”

Here’s what he said in April 2011, three months after becoming Speaker:

If considering revenue increases leads to a big 2012 budget deal for Republicans then so be it, Speaker John Boehner told me.

“I’ll put everything on the table. I think Washington has a spending problem. I don’t think it has a revenue problem. I’m not interested in raising taxes on the American people. But if it takes leaving it on the table to have the conversation, I’ll have the conversation,” he told me.

Here he is in November 2011:

“There’s room for revenue but there clearly is a limit to the revenues that may be available” to help reach the congressionally mandated target of cutting government deficits by at least $1.2 trillion, Boehner, an Ohio Republican, told reporters yesterday in Washington…

“Without real reform on the entitlement side, I don’t know how you put any revenue on the table,” Boehner said. The speaker said he “made this clear” to President Barack Obama during failed negotiations on deficit-reduction bargain in July.

Annnnnd here he is in June of this year, in the course of comparing raising new revenue to giving a drug addict another fix:

The Speaker replied: “Well, in negotiations with the president, I had additional revenues on the table. Revenues out of economic growth. Revenues out of a more efficient tax system. Revenues out of what I’ll call opportunity costs from having certainty about what the tax code looks like.”

But Boehner appeared to shut the door on raising taxes.

He famously agreed to $800 billion in new revenue as part of a deficit deal with The One last year before O allegedly demanded more, causing the deal to collapse. So why rehash all of this today? Well, investors wet themselves this afternoon over the fact that two more years of divided government means a compromise on the “fiscal cliff” will be difficult. Now that O’s reelected, he’ll spend the next month pointing to polls on the Bush tax cuts and accusing the House GOP of ignoring the “mandate” he got on tax hikes last night. (Biden is already pushing this point specifically; Boehner, in his own speech last night, pushed back hard on it.) Today’s comments are Boehner’s way of preempting Obama and signaling to the public that he’s not opposed to all deals involving more tax revenue, just ones that involve rate hikes.

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Boehner is now ready to accept some revenue increases but he no longer has the bargaining chip of “making Obama a one term president”. The President has earned his political capital—even though the conservatives did every thing within their power to keep Democrats from voting. You see, conservatives don’t believe in democracy. They believe in the colonial idea where only the wealthy and property owners were deemed rightful voters. But conservatives will like that idea up to where it is decided that they don’t own enough property or wealth to be worthy of being allowed to vote. Then they will be glad to join the Democrats.

@Liberal1 (Objectivity):

Boehner is now ready to accept some revenue increases but he no longer has the bargaining chip of “making Obama a one term president”

You didn’t really read this entry into “Most Wanted”, did you?

The President has earned his political capital—even though the conservatives did every thing within their power to keep Democrats from voting.

Political capital? On the basis of what, I ask you? The voter turnout in this election was 94% of the turnout in 2008. Obama received 9.2% FEWER votes than in 2008. Romney received only .8% fewer votes than McCain did. In the states that mattered most, FL, VA, and OH, McCain received some 650,000 fewer votes than Obama. Meanwhile, Romney only received 250,000 less than Obama. The margins were much, much closer this time around.

As for demographic, the GOP gained 1% point amongst women this time around. They gained 5% points in the 18-29 age group, lost 1% point in the 30-44 group, and gained 2% in the 45-64 and 3% in the 65+ groups. The GOP also gained big amongst the independents, taking 50% of that demographics’ vote, vice only 44% in 2008, meaning Obama lost much of the independent vote. The biggest gains that Obama had, demographically, were amongst the Latino women, who voted for Obama 76% this time around, while only voting at a 68% clip last time. Obama lost BIG amongst what should have been one of his strongest groups, black men. This time? Only 87%. Last time? They voted 95% for Obama.

Your political capital idea falls apart rapidly once you start eyeballing the demographics of the voters, Lib1.

You see, conservatives don’t believe in democracy.

I’d like to see your proof of this, Lib1. Is it because we correctly call the US a representative Republic, instead of a democracy? Is it because we are more apt to quote founding fathers like Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison, who advocated heavily for the representative republic over a true democracy? Or, is it because we care enough about ensuring that no vote is disenfranchised by ensuring that only those eligible to vote, can vote?

They believe in the colonial idea where only the wealthy and property owners were deemed rightful voters.

Since when? Show me a quote to that effect, Lib1.

But conservatives will like that idea up to where it is decided that they don’t own enough property or wealth to be worthy of being allowed to vote. Then they will be glad to join the Democrats.

And here we get to the goal of the liberal/progressive. Take, take, take, until everyone is suffering “equally”, and then use that despair and despondency to buy votes in exchange for favors. You got money squirreled away? Don’t worry, Lib1 and his all-powerful government will come along and take it, making you as poor as the person down the street. Got land? No worries there, either. Lib1 and his government will confiscate it. For government’s, I mean, everyone’s use. Got a business? Well, since you didn’t build that business in Ohio, Lib1 and the government will come along and take it over, in the name of “the people”, most of whom wouldn’t know about that business that they “helped build” anyway.

Lib1, you can keep that bleak, dreary vision of America that you are pushing. I’ll take my freedom and liberty, thank you very much.