In case you missed it, John Boehner told his caucus during a closed-door meeting this morning that the Republicans-controlled House of Representatives will vote on a clean debt ceiling bill.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told rank-and-file members that the leadership’s latest plan to tie a military pension provision to an extension of the $17.2 trillion debt limit had failed to win enough support, forcing him to schedule a vote on a “clean” bill that will be carried by Democrats.
The House will vote tonight on the clean bill, as lawmakers are set to depart Wednesday for a nearly two-week recess.
Boehner could have easily passed a clean debt ceiling bill last year, or the year before that, or the year before that, but he chose not to. So why now?
Some will posit that they’re backing down because ‘President Obama finally stood up to them,’ but I disagree. That may be a factor, but the real story is that the Republican party is so fractured they can’t even pass their own agenda in a House that they control. In the past that wasn’t the case.
They didn’t have the votes to pass anything of their choosing in exchange for raising the debt ceiling this time around, leaving Boehner with no choice but to pass a clean bill.
The last major item the GOP House was able to pass on their own without significant Democratic support was a sweeping abortion bill, and I believe that may be the last thing they pass on their own this year.
Conservative organizations such as the Club for Growth are calling for John Boehner’s head for agreeing to pass a clean debt ceiling bill, but it’s clear by now that their words aren’t worth spit.