Politics

Boehner Frustrated With Any Opposition to Budget Deal That Raises Spending

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The Republican Party's establishment continues to make its uselessness in reining in government growth in any place but an imagined future clearer and clearer, as reported in Business Insider:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) snapped at conservative groups that have come out in opposition to the budget deal reached Wednesday between Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). 

"They're using the American people for their own purposes. This is ridiculous," Boehner said at a press conference with other members of House Republican leadership on Wednesday….

In the past three days, the influential Heritage Action, Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity, and FreedomWorks have all signaled they would oppose the deal. They have all argued that while imperfect, the sequester has provided the only effective check on the Obama administration's spending….

When Boehner was asked in the press conference about the conservative groups, he cut off the reporter asking the question. 

"You mean the groups that came out opposed to it before they ever saw it?" he said. "… If you're for more deficit reduction, you're for this agreement."

Soon after the press conference, the groups denounced Boehner's comments. Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said that the group stood with the likes of Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), all of whom oppose the deal. 

"After carefully reviewing the budget deal, on which we never commented until it was complete, we determined that it would increase the size of government," Chocola said. "We support pro-growth proposals when they are considered by Congress. In our evaluation, this isn't one of those."

May forces within his Party and the movement that supports it continue to frustrate the Speaker.

Rand Paul's opposition to the Ryan-Murray plan:

"The small sequester spending cuts were not nearly enough to address our deficit problem," Paul said in a statement. "Undoing tens of billions of this modest spending restraint is shameful and must be opposed. I cannot support a budget that raises taxes and never balances, nor can I support a deal that does nothing to reduce our nation's $17.3 trillion debt."

Nick Gillespie on the plan's uselessness.

I wrote in the New York Times back in February about the importance of the libertarian strain for the GOP's future. Reason's vast body of writings on GOP establishment opposition to libertarian-leaning "wacko birds."