Boehner needs to step aside as House speaker

With such close friends and admirers as the befuddled Sen. Harry Reid and the behemoth Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Congressman and House Speaker John Boehner doesn't need anything from this ridgerunner's peanut gallery.

But Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot. This is my column.

The Speaker of the House must go.

He must stop speaking – at least for conservatives. He's doing fine speaking for liberals – if they'll have him.

One can't help but wonder if Speaker Boehner has ever played poker. If so, he'd be wise not to bluff or check and raise. He has a teary-eyed tell that's almost as big as the federal deficit.

In a game of stud poker against Barry Obama, Boehner would come up a card short of filling an inside straight. He doesn't have a full house, either. Not even a good flush.

In a contentious House vote on a holiday evening, Boehner's Republican majority backed down from taxpayers' demands for spending cuts, agreed to tax increases on 77 percent of American households, and added an estimated $4 trillion to the national deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Not a bad night's work for an erstwhile conservative Republican. (I used to admire John Boehner.)

The pork in the Job Protection and Recession Prevention Act of 2012 is almost as immense as Gov. Christie.

Maybe the Ohio congressman/speaker suffered from a New Year's Eve hangover of Olympic Proportions, last night. Who knows?

Maybe after he reportedly told Reid to go (do something to yourself that is anatomically impossible), Boehner had a change of heart. Or something.

Regardless, one thing is clear. The so-called Republican majority in the House of Representatives has proved itself as equally inept as the Democrat majority in the U.S. Senate.

In the House of Representatives, Speaker Boehner found 172 Democrats and 85 Republicans to vote for the tax-and-spend legislation.

Sixteen courageous and thoughtful Democrats and 151 equally thoughtful and courageous Republicans voted against it.

Third Congressional District Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, voted no. (Thank you.)

So did Second District Rep. Jean Schmidt on one of her final votes in this Congress. Her successor, Congressman-elect Dr. Brad Wenstrup told me several weeks ago he would have voted against it.

Urbana conservative Rep. Jim Jordan voted no. Jim's a good man.

But 85 Republicans in the House majority voted to raise taxes and spend more money. Thank you very much.

Question: How many of you are camping out to be the first in line to vote to raise the debt ceiling?

With no due respect, you guys are a collective and gutless joke.

Whatever happened to simply doing the right thing? Is that too much to ask?

For anyone who follows such things political, I ask you: How many times would you see Ohio Representatives Marcia Fudge, Speaker John Boehner, and Marcy Kaptur (that's a D ,an alleged R and another D, by the way) voting one way on a bill, while Ohio Reps. Steve Austria, Steve Chabot, Bob Gibbs, Jim Jordan, Jim Renacci, Jean Schmidt and Mike Turner (all Rs, by the way) vote the opposite way?

Well, you'll have that on holiday votes, I suppose.

Taxpayers ought to know that no good legislation ever happens on holidays or after happy hour on Fridays. The national (i.e., liberal, media) can always be counted on to be asleep at the switch at such times. Congress knows this.

I'm glad Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul had the jewels to say this was bad legislation.

"The combination of raising taxes and increasing spending is not in Americans’ best interest," Paul said, "and I could not, in good faith, support this piece of legislation.

"I will continue my fight for the American taxpayers and small businesses in the 113th Congress."

Ohio's Mike Turner showed similar intestinal fortitude.

As for the rest who supported this nonsense, well, you certainly succeeded in kicking the proverbial fiscal can down the road, and off the cliff.

By the way, how many of you are accepting your nice pay raise as approved by executive order? Hell, you pretend to work for "the people," yet you already receive – courtesy of "the people" – 10 times the per-capita income of Highland County workers. (At our expense, no less.)

I can easily name 257 members of the House of Representatives who are already overpaid.

You guys are a joke. A bad one, at that. The Senate is worse, but at least voters know where they stand with Harry Reid.

Rory Ryan is publisher of The Highland County Press.