Speaker of the House John Boehner wants us to know that he, unlike President Obama, is serious about making the tough spending cuts necessary to bring the Federal deficit under control, no matter whose ox is gored. “We are reducing programs that are important programs that we care about,” he has said sternly, “and we’re doing what every family does when it sits around its kitchen table: we’re making the choices about what do we need for the future.” As for the president and Democrats, Boehner has argued that their approach “was very small on spending discipline and a lot of new spending so-called investments.”
“Borrowing and spending is not the way to prosperity. Today’s deficits mean tomorrow’s tax increases, and that costs jobs,” Boehner said, making it clear that he means business.
Then yesterday, when House Republican freshmen agreed with President Barack Obama and voted to cancel an expenditure of $450 million for an alternative engine for the Pentagon’s next-generation fighter plane, Boehner didn’t support them….even though the Pentagon has been telling two consecutive administrations that the engine isn’t needed.
The engine “is militarily unnecessary and a wasteful use of extremely limited and precious taxpayer dollars,” said one GOP lawmaker, echoing Pentagon brass. “Right here, right now was a surefire way to reduce spending,” said Rep. Tom Rooney of Florida,whose plea to cut money from the F-35 fighter jet was answered by 47 Republican newcomers. Overall, the bi-partisan House vote to kill the funding was 238-198.
Why then was Speaker Boehner, who has made the rounds of talk shows accusing Democrats of lacking the will to reduce spending and pledging to take a meat-axe to the budget, not leading the charge?
General Electric and Rolls-Royce are major contractors for the alternative engine, and the engine program has brought many jobs to Boehner’s district in western Ohio.
Well, that’s terrific, Mr. Speaker. Everyone has to sacrifice, no wasteful spending is too small, but you refuse to apply the principles you preach when your own political capital is on the chopping block.
This is an integrity meltdown, as well as shameless hypocrisy. Why anyone would take Boehner’s odes to sacrifice and responsible spending seriously after this, I cannot imagine.
Ethics Alarms 
Maybe he’s being deceitful? Perhaps he had closed door meetings with the freshmen lawmakers and encouraged them to openly push back against him to defeat the engine, but that he would openly try to salvage the spending so that he had good sound bites when the elections rolled around again. Heck, even staying silent on the cut would probably be enough fodder for his opponent in the next election.
I know super-powers and especially mind reading is completely unethical, but I would love to know what people really think and whether their words are strategy or genuine.
It’s a good observation, and certainly not without precedent. Boehner’s problem is that he leads the House and the party–he can’t get away with it. Leaders have to walk the talk, or they can’t lead.