Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The Republican Party elite and some of its allies in the business world have been alternately delighted and horrified by the Tea Party caucus they empowered in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. On Tuesday, that horror was temporarily dissipated when House Speaker John Boehner announced he would advance a ‘clean’ bill to raise the national debt ceiling, conservative protests be damned. Passing an increase in the borrowing limit without cuts in spending to compensate for it has become anathema to the right, whose champions have spooked investors repeatedly in recent years by using the debt limit as a blunt instrument to advance their agenda and build national profiles.
VISUAL CONTEXT: Debt limit votes
Courtesy of Christian Science Monitor (Research: Allison Terry, Graphic: Jake Turcotte).
But restiveness in the GOP caucus, highlighted most of all by Senator Rand Paul’s dramatic filibuster of drone policy last year that ultimately failed to block John Brennan from taking the helm of the Central Intelligence Agency, is no longer a shock to Boehner and his lieutenants. On the contrary, this quick, anti-climactic resolution of the latest debt ceiling hike suggests the GOP elite is determined not to provide the Tea Party with yet another stint before the national microphone.
The only question, then, is how conservative activists and organizations like the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity can effectively push back. It’s not enough to call for Boehner’s head, as they’ve been doing that for years to little effect. Indeed, the speaker may not be popular among doctrinaire conservatives, but no one else — not even the ultra-ambitious types like Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor and Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan — wants his job, as disappointing the base is practically baked into the cake when a Democratic president is sitting pretty on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue. In that sense, Boehner is essentially calling the Tea Party’s bluff, daring it to mount a formal challenge to his power on a scale not yet seen.
