Enjoy the Republicans’ debacle, but don’t read too much into it

By Jonathan Bernstein , WashPost, Updated: December 20, 2012

There was nothing but embarrassment for Speaker John Boehner and House Republicans tonight, as they were forced to pull the vote on Boehner’s “Plan B” tax bill at the last minute because, as Boehner said, they didn’t have the votes to pass it. The Speaker sent the House home for through Christmas, with the option of recalling them afterwards if there’s anything for them to do.

For tonight, it’s a debacle, and they look foolish. But I’d caution against reading too much into this episode. It’s not at all clear it changes anything moving forward.

First of all, if Boehner was using the vote to get information about how the members of his conference were thinking, it may have actually helped him know what kind of deal he can make with Barack Obama and get through the House. Remember, sooner or later it’s almost certain that Republicans in the House will have to do something to keep tax rates low for most filers while allowing them to go up for some upper-income taxpayers. They won’t need 218 votes for that one, however, so the fact that they couldn’t come up with this number today (albeit for a smaller tax increase) doesn’t mean they won’t be able to do it then, either for a simple tax bill or for a larger budget deal.

Second, I’ve seen some speculation that Boehner could be in danger of losing his job over this. In the long run, that may be true, but in the short run, the problems here have nothing to do with Boehner in particular. Any new speaker would be faced with exactly the same dilemma: Too many House Republicans won’t accept the reality of the deal they will eventually have to accept.

(More here.)