Gridlock takes a holiday as GOP stands up to tea party
It was big news this week when the House of Representatives approved a federal budget bill that raises spending over the next two years in return for $23 billion in deficit reduction over the next decade. It’s even bigger news, though, that the plan represents an effort by centrist Republicans to end the tea party’s choked hold on the GOP.
Tea partyers are particularly angry because the compromise eliminates 60 percent of the automatic spending cuts required as part of the sequestration.
House Speaker John Boehner – whose efforts to placate Republican hardliners opposed any compromise have been treated with disdain – lashed out twice against the tea party this week.
“They’re misleading their followers,” Boehner said. “I just think that they’ve lost all credibility.”
Boehner’s decision to lash out and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., choice to spearhead the compromise spending plan is recognition that with the 2014 congressional elections looming, the party’s best blueprint is to moderate its scorched earth strategy.