Harry Reid wants Boehner to Ditch the Tea Party

For Senate Majority leader Harry Reid to publicly request that House Speaker John Boehner ditch the Tea Party when the Current Continuing Resolution expires on April 8th, it's quite obvious that he's concerned about the force of the Tea Party Republicans. Reid wants Boehner to abandon them and join with the Democrats to either put forth another CR that will continue kicking the can down the road in the name of avoiding a government shutdown or agree to more, though still negligible cuts.

Here is Reid's expression of 'disappointment' with the Tea Party via The Hill:

“I am extremely disappointed that after weeks of productive negotiations with Speaker Boehner, Tea Party Republicans are scrapping all the progress we have made and threatening to shut down the government if they do not get all of their extreme demands," Reid said in a statement.

"The division between the Tea Party and mainstream Republicans is preventing us from reaching a responsible solution on a long-term budget that will make smart cuts while protecting American jobs, and prevented negotiations from taking place over the weekend even as the clock ticks toward a government shutdown," he added.

Considering the number of Republicans who vowed that there would be no more CR's, Boehner better pay attention to the contingency that put him in power last November. Siding with Reid would be the equivalent of using the nuclear option on himself.

To illustrate how absurd both the Republican and Democrat proposals are with respect to budget cuts, consider that interest on the current debt is $250 Billion. Yet, both party establishments want to cut spending by significantly less than that. The Democrats have been standing firm at $10 Billion while Reid is hinting that an olive branch of $20 Billion may be on the table. Meanwhile, the Republicans are playing around with the higher number of $60 Billion in cuts.

The Tea Party is the only group making any sense, saying that both are drops in the proverbial bucket. As if that wasn't enough, a lot has happened since the last CR. In particular, a little kinetic military operation in Libya that has already blown countless dollars in additional spending.



h/t Hapblog