You Can Lead A Horse to Water…
John Boehner has seen this movie before.
You have to feel for the Speaker.
He knows that it would have been smarter politically had the House Republicans taken up the Senate payroll tax bill, passed it and had the President sign it.
The Republicans would have then declared total victory, and then come back in two months and gotten another concession from the President.
The Keystone pipeline provision was a huge concession by Mr. Obama, and getting that done would have been enough to be plausibly happy.
But at the end of a session, when emotions run high, when Members lose a healthy sense of perspective, sometimes reason does not win out.
And let’s face it. The House Majority never, ever likes to be jammed by bipartisan action from the Senate.
I can think of a couple of examples when I worked in the House where we were furious with Senate action. One time, the Senate Republican leadership cut a secret deal that made President Bush’s tax cut half the size. Another time, the whole Senate passed legislation federalizing the TSA. A third time, the Senate passed a 9/11 Commission.
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