Why Is John Boehner Letting House Republicans Be Mitch McConnell’s Toy?

Here is what is going to happen unless House Republicans stage an immediate revolt against their own House leadership.

Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi are going to win. They have managed to cut the legs out from under John Boehner and the House Republicans. In fact, the House Republicans have taken on all the appearances of Mitch McConnell’s basement gimp.

I’m not sure why we need them any more if the McConnell-Reid-Pelosi Pontius Pilate Act passes.

See, John Boehner ceded authority to Mitch McConnell. Instead of embracing the conservative “Cut, Cap, and Balance” plan or even pushing forward with Paul Ryan’s plan as an alternative, Boehner let McConnell move forward and cut Boehner’s legs out from under him. It was a willing sacrifice on Boehner’s part because he’d rather be legless than fight.

Now here is what Boehner and McConnell have agreed to do.

At the start of next week, House Republicans will vote on their cut, cap, and balance plan.

Because of leadership undermining it behind the scenes, it will be lucky to get 218 votes. And if it gets 218 votes, it will get to the Senate and Mitch McConnell will declare his support for it while letting Harry Reid deny it a vote. Of, better yet, they’ll vote for it. It won’t get 51 votes.

And then Mitch McConnell and John Boehner will say as they are already starting to say in the press, “Well, we just couldn’t get it through. Time to go with the Pontius Pilate Act.” There will be no fight. There will be no holding the line. The votes will come fast to avoid getting any last minute momentum. It will all be so Congressional Republican Leaders will say, “Well, they failed. Let’s move on.” Never mind that moving on instead of holding the line is what got us into this mess to begin with.

We’ll get another deficit commission in the deal. And then we’ll cede congressional power to the President to raise the debt ceiling so Republicans don’t get blamed.

It is now a foregone conclusion.

House Republicans have refused to hold the freaking line. They have refused to fight. In fact, they have bought the myth that they are powerless and let Mitch McConnell negotiate for them. He, being a Senator, pretended they don’t matter, and is now prepared to hand their power over to Barack Obama.

This is, as it was, all about Mitch McConnell. It was never about saving the country or raising the debt ceiling.

McConnell is convinced the GOP will lose the PR battle and if they lose the PR battle, he won’t become Senate Majority Leader. That’s all McConnell wants. And now, because House Republicans are fine acting like McConnell’s basement gimp, McConnell might just get that and the country will get $2 trillion in new debt over the next year without significant spending cuts.

But hey! We’ll get another deficit commission. Just the like the one we had last year. But even more super awesome.

The only thing that could possibly change the outcome is a full on rebellion by House Republicans against their leadership. But given their caving on the continuing resolution and their failure to fight over Obamacare, I won’t hold my breath.

As David Gregory said this morning on Meet the Press, “Debt is winning.” Thanks Republicans!