John Boehner is Dead Wrong, But Obama Must Lead

Nine days and counting and the federal government’s doors are still closed. Social services and federal benefits and food and safety protections programs for American citizens, just to name a few, are stalled. Markets are starting to react and citizens are growing weary of the constant quagmire in our dysfunctional Washington. John Boehner is on the ropes – and he should be. He is the Speaker of the House, but has been acting like the Minority Leader, and then again the minority leader of a minority of his own party. Passing cherry-picked amendments to restore some popular federal programs instead of re-opening the entire federal government, and forcing House Democrats to vote against this piece-meal restoration of government so that the Republicans can use their votes in political ads in the 2014 election reeks of minority politics.

Yesterday, Speaker Boehner chided President Barack Obama for seeking “unconditional surrender” from the House Republicans by re-iterating that he will negotiate with the Republicans over the budget and health care and other issues only after Congress passes a short-term government funding measure and increases the debt limit. “That’s not the way our government works, Boehner said.” But, John Boehner is dead wrong. That is the way our government works – or should work. I know from first-hand experience as a Connecticut state legislator, a legislative assistant in the House and a chief of staff in the Senate that government works when Members work across the aisle in the existing legislative system to resolve disputes not by throwing down unreasonable and irresponsible gauntlets, like asking a President to disown his signature Affordable Health Care Act as a condition to putting 800,000 federal workers back at work to serve the American people (and then constantly changing his demands as the days progress when the first dart doesn’t stick). That’s a non-starter and only makes compromise tougher to achieve.

Since March of this year when both the Senate and the House passed fiscal 2014 federal budgets, John Boehner has refused eighteen times to meet with Senate Conferees to iron out a federal budget for the year that started October 1st. And, he has refused to put a clean continuing budget resolution (CR) on the Floor of the House to keep the federal government operating even for another 30-60 days while other spending and tax matters can be resolved. He claims that he doesn’t have the votes to pass it. But, for the sake of the country, he should act like the Speaker of the House – the whole House – and put a clean CR to a vote on the floor.

There are 432 House Members – 232 Republicans and 200 Democrats, and three vacancies. 218 Votes would be needed to pass a clean CR without attached provisions.  Most Congressional sources predict that close to all 200 Democratics would vote for such a measure. And, several Republican Congressmen, like Representative Charlie Dent (R-PA), predict that there are at least 24 moderate Republicans in the House who would support it. By refusing to put the clean CR on the Floor, John Boehner is ignoring the very essence of how our democracy works and was framed by our forefathers: that a majority of the full House (51%) rules, that all duly-elected Congressman have a right to vote, and that to deny them that right effectively disenfranchises all of the American citizens who voted for them.

Three times in this Congress, John Boehner has let the whole House determine the vote on a measure without requiring the majority support to come from just Republicans  – with the 2011 sequester vote, the Storm Sandy federal fund relief measure, and the Violence against Women Act Amendments. He should also do so now – before a prospective October 17th debt limit catastrophe for our country.

But, despite Speaker Boehner’s misguided actions, President Obama needs to offer some cover to Republicans, as painful as it may be. He is the commander in chief of our country and as President Harry Truman said, “The buck stops here.” He has the ultimate responsibility for the fate of our country. Having a gun to his head is detestable and given his treatment over the last several years by the House Republicans, he is surely reluctant to offer them an olive branch. But, he must. For the sake of our country.

Obama is also not faultless. He has done little in the last four plus years to build relationships with both Democratic and Republican Members of Congress so he has little political capital to call in at a time of crisis. Unlike Bill Clinton, who served as President during my years as a deputy director at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a chief of staff in the U.S. Senate, who would roll up his sleeves, work the phones with Members of Congress, and get into the nitty gritty of working out a legislative compromise, President Obama is not a natural, and even seems uncomfortable “dirtying his hands” with the politics of compromise. But, as I know from being involved in heated budget negotiations as a legislator, Boehner and his conservative Republican Members need to save face and they will never agree to a deal before October 17th without “something”” from the President.

Moreover, even though the Democrats are correct in their characterization of John Boehner’s action as irresponsible, given the political disfunction in Washington over the last several years, I believe most Americans will blame both Republicans and Democrats for the government shutdown. Most are not “into” the nuances of  “clean CR’s” and Conference Committees. In fact, a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll bears this out with only about a 10% higher disapproval rating of Congressional Republicans than President Obama and the Democrats.

It may take until midnight on October 16th for a deal to be done. But, President Obama would do well to get it ironed out now. He can come out of this crisis looking presidential if he can get both sides to tone down the rhetoric and grandstanding and is able to lead by fostering a deal that re-opens the government and guarantees that the federal government will pay its debts.

The current alternatives aren’t promising, although they may put some heat on the Republicans to get “real” with their demands. The Senate Democratic Plan to vote out a bill by early next week to raise the government’s borrowing limit without strings attached may fail due to the good ole Senate cloture rule requiring 60 votes to end a minority filibuster, in this case, most likely by the Senate Republicans. (Again, a slap at the majority rule foundation of our American government.) And, the House Democrats discharge petition to bring a clean CR to the House Floor for a vote needs to sit in the House Rules Committee until Friday, October 11th and then 218 members need to sign the petition in order to bring it to the floor for a vote. I doubt Republicans will want to vote twice on the petition and the clean CR, especially when many moderate Republicans fear the Tea Party Republicans will run opponents against them in the next election to get even.

So, President Obama needs to find “something” to offer Boehner and the House Republicans in exchange for a clean CR vote on the floor. And, if Boehner continues to refuse to do so, President Obama may have no feasible alternative than to work out a short-term CR to get the government running again – but not just to kick the can down the road. Don’t put the American people through another 60 days of this fiasco. Some of the issues are well-defined and don’t need 60 days to be fleshed out. Include some real provisions in the CR, be it even a few modest improvements to the Affordable Care Act, a framework for some future entitlement reform, as Congressman Paul Ryan suggested in today’s Wall Street Journal piece, and a change in the straight jacket sequester spending limits that will appeal to House and Senate Democrats.

Most Americans want an efficiently run federal government. Paying federal workers when the shutdown is not their fault is fair. But, paying them without getting government services in return flies in the face of every Republican platform for getting the bang for our federal buck. Right now we are getting nothing and the taxpayers are footing the bill. House Republicans – and President Obama – need to come to the table and get a budget and debt limit resolution done now.