Three days ago, Washington was preoccupied with the prospect of a “grand bargain” between President Obama and congressional Republicans over deficit reduction. Obama would offer $3 trillion in spending cuts – including changes in Social Security and Medicare – and in return, Republicans would provide $1 trillion in additional revenues and lift the debt ceiling. For Republicans, this was a great deal. Democrats were handing them an opportunity to defund vital parts of the welfare state, a long-time conservative goal. All the GOP had to do was take it. They refused.
On Saturday, two days after the administration proposed it, House Speaker John Boehner announced that the bargain was dead, citing Democrats' demands for higher taxes. Of course, this isn't the whole story. Initially, Boehner was willing to consider a grand bargain on taxes and spending. Congressional Republicans, on the other hand, weren’t so open-minded. Majority Leader Eric Cantor, along with other right-wing members, voiced his opposition to the proposal, with added support from the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and other institutions of movement conservatism. Politico captured the dynamic with this great quote:
“It's crazy to think the speaker was considering a trillion [dollars] in tax increases. After all, we're the anti-tax party,” said one veteran Republican lawmaker close to leadership. “Cantor brought him, the economy and our party back from the abyss. Cantor is strengthened, clearly. And it's another example of the speaker almost slipping beyond the will of the GOP conference.”
Boehner couldn't deal, but that has less to do with his personal preferences, and more to do with his weak position within the GOP. When push comes to shove, Boehner isn't the most important Republican in the room. Instead, as Politico points out, he's “first among equals” in a party dominated by hard-right conservatives, a nice way of saying that he's irrelevant. As Ezra Klein put it, “The deal’s collapse is, first and foremost, a reminder that what Boehner wants really doesn’t matter.”
