Boehner: Pope Francis will bring ‘fresh eyes,’ reform to Vatican

By Molly K. Hooper - 03/17/13 11:50 AM ET

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), a practicing Catholic, praised the election of Pope Francis and said he was optimistic the new pope would bring reform to the Vatican.

“I do believe that Pope Francis is the right person to really bring reform to the church,” said Boehner on ABC’s “This Week.”

The Speaker said the Vatican is plagued by “a number of issues” that he believes “need fresh eyes.”

“He’s clearly made a commitment to clean up some of the problems that the church has had,” said Boehner of the new pope. “And it's pretty clear-- from his humble nature that-- that his papacy will be one that I think a lot of people will appreciate.”

The Vatican cardinals last week elected Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the new pope. He took the name of Francis, succeeding Pope Benedict XVI, who formally resigned in February. 

“This is the first time that we've had a pope from the Americas,” Boehner added.  “So, I think it's a giant step forward for the church. Latin America is a very, very Catholic continent.”

Boehner declined an invitation from the White House to join a delegation that will attend the papal installation mass, saying that he would need to stay in Washington to move the House budget and to meet the Irish prime minister, who is arriving this week.

Boehner, though, said he was “grateful for the invitation” from the White House. 

"Unfortunately, my duties in the House next week -- including hosting President Obama and the prime minister of Ireland at the Capitol on Tuesday, and the debate on the budget -- make that impossible," Boehner said last week.

Vice President Joe Biden is leading the delegation to Rome, and will be joined by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

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Boehner ‘absolutely’ trusts Obama, but wary of odds for deficit deal

By Molly K. Hooper - 03/17/13 11:02 AM ET

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) says that he “absolutely” trusts President Obama, but is wary that a grand bargain on the deficit is attainable.

“I don't know whether we can come to a big agreement,” said Boehner in an interview aired Sunday on on ABC’s “This Week.” 

Boehner’s comments come after Obama’s week-long effort to reach out to lawmakers from both parties. The president visited Capitol Hill to meet with Democrats and Republicans from both chambers on a wide range of issues, but with a focus on building a framework to reach a deficit deal.

But the talks also highlighted the split between the White House and Republicans, in particular over taxes. Obama is calling for new tax revenues in a deficit deal.

Earlier this week, Obama also told House Republicans that he opposed a 10-year balanced budget in a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, saying his focus was on boosting the economy and jobs.

But Boehner said that increasing taxes on Americans was a non-starter for Republicans, noting that the president won that battle at the start of the year with the expiration of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for individuals making more than several hundred thousand dollars.

Boehner said that of President Obama “believes that we have to have more taxes from the American people, we’re not going to get very far.”

“If the president doesn't believe that the goal oughta be to balance the budget over the next ten years-- I don't-- not sure we're gonna get very far,” Boehner cautioned.

The House and Senate are both set to vote on their respective budget proposals this week, but neither plan is expected to pass in the other chamber.

Boehner, though, suggested that the House and Senate budgets could at least move forward talks on a deficit deal.

“If we do -- it'll be between the two parties on Capitol Hill. Hopefully, we can go to conference on these budgets and hope springs eternal in my mind,” he said.

The No. 2 ranking Senate Democrat Dick Durbin (Mich.) on Sunday also said the House and Senate budget blueprints presented an opportunity for deal-making between the parties.

“We’ve got to pass this budget resolution in the Senate … and then we’re going to move to the next stage, and that is the grand bargain stage, that’s what the president is trying to set up, both sides sitting down on a bipartisan basis not trying to eliminate Medicare … putting revenues on the table that are fair … and making sure it’s a balanced approach,” Durbin said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Despite his contention that he has a “very good relationship” with President Obama, Boehner though said a grand bargain will be tough to achieve.

“We’re trying to bridge some big differences,” Boehner noted, adding that though the country is not facing “an immediate debt crisis,” in light of the changes that Congress has taken over the past few years. But he warned that there is a major crisis “looming,” in the “entitlement programs that are not sustainable in their current form.”

Fellow Republican, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said on “Fox News Sunday” however that his party may be open to creating revenue with tax reform, if Democrats are open to making structural changes in entitlements such as Medicare.

“I think Republicans if they saw true entitlement reform would be glad to look at tax reform that generates additional revenues, and that doesn't mean increasing rates that means closing loopholes, that also means arranging our tax system so that we have economic growth,” Corker said.

Corker said there was a window for a grand bargain occurring within the next four to five months.

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Boehner: GOP needs better messaging

By Molly K. Hooper - 03/17/13 01:15 PM ET

The highest-ranking elected Republican thinks his party needs to articulate their message more effectively, not clean house of GOP leaders.

Asked if the party had grown “stale and moss covered” – in reference to a remark made by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) – Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) defended the GOP’s principles. 

“The issue with our party is pretty simple.  There's nothing wrong with the principles of our party,” said Boehner on ABC’s “This Week.”  “But Republicans have not done as an effective job as we should in terms of talking about our principles in terms that average people can appreciate.” 

Last week’s CPAC summit of prominent GOP and conservative activists highlighted many of the divisions in the party, as Republicans look to rebound after the devastating presidential and Senate losses in the 2012 election.

Boehner seized on the issue of “balancing the budget.”

“Balancing the budget, as an example would be good for American families. We've got to do a better job of helping people understand what our principles are in terms that they deal with every day,” Boehner said.

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Boehner Says He Would Oppose Marriage Equality Even If Son Was Gay

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) — who is spending millions of taxpayer dollars opposing marriage equality — told ABC’s This Week that he could never see himself supporting same-sex unions, despite the growing evolution towards marriage for all within the Republican Party.

Responding to Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) change of heart on the issue, Boehner said that he “appreciates” his friend’s new position, but insisted that “I believe that marriage is a union of a man and a woman” and predicted that he would not change his mind even if he found out that his own son is gay:

MARTHA RADDATZ (HOST): Can you imagine yourself in a situation where you reversed your decision as Portman has on gay marriage if a child of yours or someone you love told you they were gay.

BOEHNER: Listen, I believe marriage is a union between one man and one woman. It’s what I grew up with, it’s what i belive, it’s what my church teaches me and I can’t imagine that position would ever change.

Watch it:

Research indicates that people who have a close gay friend or family member are “more than twice as likely” to support same-sex marriage.

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Boehner Agrees With Obama: The Debt Crisis Is Not ‘Immediate’

The arrival of budget season has brought debt panic back to the Beltway. But President Obama threw cold water on the matter last week, telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that the United States does not face “immediate crisis in terms of debt.” And this morning, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) essentially told ABC’s Martha Raddatz he agrees with Obama, calling the debt crisis “looming,” but not “immediate.”

“We do not have an immediate debt crisis,” Boehner said on ABC News’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” “But we all know that we have one looming. And we have — one looming — because we have entitlement programs that are not sustainable in their current form. They’re gonna go bankrupt.” [...]

“[President Obama's] point, as he went on to say in that interview, is that we don’t — we don’t really need to do anything at this point. And I would argue that we do need to do something,” said the House speaker.

Debt is already projected to remain at or below its current share of the economy for the next decade, and it’s good that Boehner is standing in agreement with the president on that point.

Unfortunately, the budget the House Republicans just released does not reflect this realization. It cuts all spending that isn’t Medicare, Social Security, or the military down to near-historic lows over the next ten years. America’s economy remains in the doldrums, leaving the unemployment rate at 7.7 percent (it has never been that high for that long since the Great Depression) and all the real-world evidence we have indicates that austerity in depressions cripples economic growth. If everyone agrees the debt crisis is not immediate, then job growth and economic revival should be topping deficit reduction on the country’s list of priorities.

Nor is there a great deal of evidence to back up Boehner’s distinction between an “immediate” and “looming” debt crisis. The long-term projections of mounting debt he and other D.C. lawmakers rely on are in fact riddled with dramatic assumptions and uncertainties about the future behavior of both Congress and the economy.

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Boehner: House will vote again to block 'ObamaCare'

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Wednesday that the House will vote again soon to repeal or defund President Obama's healthcare law.

"Well I would expect that sometime in the coming months that we will once again move to get rid of ObamaCare," Boehner said in an interview on Sean Hannity's radio show. "We've had a number of votes in the House in the last two years to end ObamaCare or get rid of it."

The House held 33 votes over the last two years to repeal or defund all or part of the Affordable Care Act, but the repeal push has faded since the Supreme Court upheld the law and President Obama's reelection ensured that repeal votes would be futile.

Boehner had said after the election that "ObamaCare is the law of the land," and the House hasn't picked funding battles over the law so far this year.

Hannity pressed Boehner on his decision not to vote on a defunding proposal as part of the House's continuing resolution, which keeps the government operating through the end of the fiscal year. Conservatives in the Senate demanded a defunding vote on the chamber's CR.

"The government runs out of money on March 27 and our goal is to have the spending fight — whether it's ObamCcare and all the rest— is to have that fight over the sequester," Boehner responded. 

Holding a defunding vote at the wrong time, like during consideration of raising the debt ceiling, could jeopardize the country's credit, Boehner argued. 

"There will be opportunities ahead but do you want risk the full faith and credit of the United States government over ObamaCare? That's a very tough argument to make," Boehner added. "The American people are gong to control this."

House Republicans will have no problem passing legislation defunding the law, Boehner said, even if the Senate is certain not to follow suit.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced an amendment defunding the healthcare law. The Senate amendment failed Wednesday.

"The Senate's never done anything," Boehner said. "I expect the Senate will have a vote during their budget debate on ObamaCare. I don't expect it'll pass. But we're going to continue to help the American people understand just how devastating this law is going to be, both on the budget side and to the fact that they're not going toe able to keep the lean insurance they like, as the president promised them."

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Poll: 50 percent disapprove of Boehner on 'fiscal cliff' negotiations

By Alicia M. Cohn - 01/04/13 05:12 PM ET

Americans are evenly split in their opinion of the “fiscal cliff” deal signed into law this week, but more people disapprove of the way congressional leaders handled negotiations than President Obama or Vice President Biden, according to a new poll released Friday.

The Gallup poll found that 43 percent approve of the tax bill, while 45 percent disapprove and 12 percent have no opinion.

The poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points, making the split a statistical tie.

The national poll mostly proves true multiple polls from last year predicting that the public would blame Republicans more than Democrats if the country went over the “fiscal cliff,” but Democrats in Congress did not fare much better.

When asked about generic Democratic leaders and Republican leaders, Americans disapproved more than approved of both groups. Republicans leaders earned a 67 percent disapproval rating over the fiscal-cliff negotiations, with 25 percent approval, while Democratic leaders earned 55 to 34 percent ratings. 

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) apparently took the most blame, with half of those polled disapproving of the way he handled negotiations, at 50 percent disapproval to 31 percent approval. The numbers for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are close, with 48 percent disapproval to 27 percent approval for Reid and 46 percent to 28 for McConnell, although about 25 percent of those asked had no opinion for either man.

Obama and Biden fared better in Americans’ opinion of those involved in negotiations, with statistically tied approval-disapproval numbers. Obama earned 48 percent disapproval to 46 percent approval, and Biden 42 to 40 percent.

Technically, Congress missed the deadlines at the end of the year that allowed the George W. Bush-era tax rates to expire and the automatic spending cuts triggered by sequestration to kick in. Biden and McConnell ultimately brokered a deal that the Senate passed on New Year's Day followed by the House that night.

The legislation indefinitely extends the expiring Bush-era tax rates on annual family incomes up to $450,000, and for individuals up to a $400,000 cut-off. It also lifts the top capital gains and dividends rates to 20 percent, extends unemployment benefits for a year and delays for two months the automatic spending cuts triggered by the sequestering process.

More Republicans and Independents disapprove than approve of the deal itself, while more Democrats approve than disapprove, the poll found. The legislation passed with more Democratic than Republican support — it received 85 Republican votes in the House, but all except five Republican senators voted for it.

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GOP Rep. Says Boehner ‘Put A Knife In The Back Of New Yorkers’ By Blocking Vote On Sandy Relief

Rep. Peter King (R-NY)

A furious Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took aim at his own party in a Fox News interview Wednesday, a day after House GOP leaders broke their promise to hold a vote on a Hurricane Sandy relief bill. King said the decision by the House Republican leadership to scrap a planned vote on a multi- billion aid package amounted to a “knife in the back” of those hit hardest by the bill. The Senate had approved a $60.4 billion aid bill last Friday, but the House move appeared to scuttle any chance of a bill before the new Congress begins Thursday.

King said that after the move, he feels no obligation to vote with his leadership and suggested that East Coast residents who contribute to the GOP are insane. King complained that Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor reneged on their promise to hold a vote on the package, without explanation:

In his explanation of the events of Tuesday night, he noted that neither Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) nor Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) offered any explanation for the broken promise:

KING: No one even told us, the Speaker walked off the floor, told an aide to the Majority Leader that the Congress was finished. There were no votes and they come back and told us. Listen, I’m not taking this as personal offense. I’m talking about the thousands of people in my district, hundreds of thousands of people throughout the New York-New Jersey area. Within 10 days after Katrina, $60 billion was appropriated. Nine weeks after Sandy, not one penny has been appropriated. And let me just make this one point. These Republicans have no problem finding New York when they’re out raising millions of dollars. They’re in New York all the time filling pockets with money from New Yorkers. I’m saying anyone from New York and New Jersey who contributes one penny to Congressional Republicans is out of their mind. Because what they did last night was put a knife in the back of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans, it was an absolute disgrace. …

Why the Republican party has bias against New York, this bias against New Jersey, this bias against the Northeast. They wonder why they’re becoming minority party. Why we’ll be party of the permanent minority. What they did last night was so immoral, so disgraceful, so irresponsible. They’re supposed to be the party of family values. And you have families that are starving, families that are suffering, families that are spread all over living in substandard housing. This was a disgrace. They are inexcusable. And they have had it. As far as I’m concerned I’m on my own. They’re going to have to go a long way to get my vote on anything.

Watch the interview:

King noted that while national Republicans were all-too-happy to put Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) out as a surrogate during the 2012 campaign, with this move they “knifed him in the back.”

In a separate interview on CNN, he added that Boehner refused to meet with him and yelled at Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), “I’m not going to meet with you people.”

A fellow New York Republican, Rep. Michael Grimm, echoed King’s remarks, calling the leadership’s move a “personal betrayal,” and noting that “the people of this country that have been devastated are looking at this as a betrayal by the Congress and by the nation, and that is just untenable and unforgivable.”

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Tech at Night: CISPA passes the House, FCC passes campaign regulations, Boehner calls out Obama

So, the Internet died this week or something. CISPA was amended much, as I gather mostly tightening up some alleged privacy concerns. Then it passed the House. I don’t know if it’ll become law, but it’s a good idea. The comparisons with SOPA are deceptive.

Speaker Boehner cut to the heart of the matter, pointing out that President Obama’s CISPA veto threat was rooted in his desire to control the Internet. The White House was stung enough to reply, but it’s true: CISPA opposition is a ruse to fool feeble minded leftys into thinking Republicans are the threat, rather than the Democrat Cybersecurity bill in the Senate, pushed by Joe Lieberman. It’s Lieberman-Collins that’s the threat to liberty online.

More and more it’s clear we dodged a bullet by preventing Joe Barton from becoming Energy and Commerce chairman.

Darrell Issa’s on a roll: His FISMA overhaul also passed, passing easily under suspension on the heels of his transparency bill passing by voice vote. Secure the government. If the government is so good at Internet security that Barack Obama wants to regulate, then let’s just clean house internally instead. As long as Anonymous can hit things like the CIA website, there’s work to be done. I know, it’s just a website, but what other websites are at risk?

Look, guys, the bad guys are out there and looking for ways to attack America online. They’re sharing information amongst themselves, too. That’s why we need CISPA: to level the playing field. That’s also why improving the government’s standards for itself also matters.

The FCC continues to outdo itself when it comes to power grabs. Now they’re after content: passing regulations attempting to stifle political speech ahead of the election.

Yet unfortunately Chuck Grassley is relenting on his FCC holds, saying he’s satisfied with the FCC starting to open up to him, even though there’s still more investigating to be done on the LightSquared situation.

Jim DeMint has got some people worried. Even as he questioned Aereo, he’s threatening the unfair advantage broadcasters have in retransmission negotiations. That’s why lately you’re seeing lots of sob stories about broadcasters. This is a coordinated effort to make you think that DeMint is the Grinch attacking the poor local TV station. Ignore it.

Spectrum: we need it, the Democrats obstruct that process as in the cases of Verizon, AT&T, and any other high profile deal they can get their thieving hands onto, but Cliff Stearns and the Republican House are trying to fix it. Enough said.

That’s all we need for a great wireless market. we don’t need regulation, just freed-up spectrum for competition and growth.

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