we have not had two near defaults, two brushes up against the debt ceiling, one government shutdown and no legislation of any significance at all since he has been speaker. he has been unable to roll back any accomplishments of the democrats on that time. the means by which john boehner has failed over the past three years have been public, all happening in the open. we ought to be able to predict them, but it s always still shocking when it happens. he had a republican farm bill that his own side killed. a transportation bill, a housing bill that his own side killed. john boehner had plans for the fiscal cliff fight and the first debt ceiling and the payroll tax extension. he even had a leadership version of a health care bill. he put all those things out there publicly. here is what i, as leader of the republican party, say we are going to do. he looked behind him, and the
tonight he finally did it. the white house had insisted that there are no winners, but nobody is coming out on top and it may be true that nobody wins here. but somebody definitely lost here, and the story of john boehner leading the house republicans since the got control of congress in 2011 is a remarkable story of failure. we have not had two near defaults, two brushes up against the debt ceiling, one government shutdown and no legislation of any significance at all since he has been speaker. he has been unable to roll back any accomplishments of the democrats on that time. the means by which john boehner has failed over the past three years have been public, all happening in the open. we ought to be able to predict them, but it s always still shocking when it happens. he had a republican farm bill that his own side killed. a transportation bill, a housing bill that his own side killed. john boehner had plans for the fiscal cliff fight and the first debt ceiling and the payroll tax
we ought to be able to predict them, but it s always still shocking when it happens. he had a republican farm bill that his own side killed. a transportation bill, a housing bill that his own side killed. john boehner had plans for the fiscal cliff fight and the first debt ceiling and the payroll tax extension. he even had a leadership version of a health care bill. he put all those things out there publicly. here is what i, as leader of the republican party, say we are going to do. he looked behind him, and the best of the republicans said no, we are not going to do it. john boehner s tenure since republicans took control in january 2011 has really only succeeded in accomplishing one thing, that he is still the speaker of the house. he has not lost that job. maybe that is because nobody else wants it. john boehner is still there, which is amazing giving the
support, violence against women act and go ahead. sorry, violence against women act and he s let other things like that come to the floor. the payroll tax extension, but this particular issue is sody visive and so has so much passion among the base, and therefore, among many in his conference that he s simply not been willing to allow this to come up for a bipartisan vote. if he were to allow it to come up for a vote, you say scott ridgell would be on board for a clean piece of legislation without any attachments to obama care. and if all the democrats were to support it it, you d need 17, 1, 20 republicans to support it and you got peter king, you ve interviewed him, charlie dent. there are at least a dozen, but are there 20? you know, what those members told me is if they actually had the bill presented to them and they were actually able to vote on it, there would be a lot more
skepticism about this deal and not getting enough in new revenues. the president saying, look, this is not a perfect deal, not grand bargain, the big deal they had initially hoping for and working on but it is a deal nonetheless and will prevent at least part of the fiscal cliff set to go in to effect in a matter of hours now. mike, we talk a lot here about the sequester, the income tax rates for the wealthy and other issues that need to be resolved or one on the table. one that s not on the table, the payroll tax extension is just gone. unemployment insurance extension looks like it s part of this. and medicare dock fix. you have any sense of two other things that obama s been looking for here? one is an extension of the expansion of the refundable tax credits of stimulus in 2009. these are things pushing for. if that s part of it and obama looking for at least some infrastructure, some stimulus