“I believe that raising taxes at this point in our recovery is a big mistake,” Boehner said at a Capitol press conference when asked about Pelosi’s letter…“Even under Ms. Pelosi’s argument, half of those who would get this higher tax are small-business people that are sub-Chapter S or other types of pass-through entities,” Boehner said. “At a time when we are trying to help small businesses create jobs, this proposal would kill jobs.”

This statistic is simply not true. In fact, it’s false according to Boehner’s spokesman Michael Steel. When Boehner made the same claim regarding millionaires and small businesses last year, FactCheck.org contacted Boehner’s office, and Steel “quickly admitted that the speaker was mistaken.”

Under a reasonable definition of small businesses, just 13 percent of millionaires can be considered small business owners. And just 0.5 percent of the nation’s small business owners cross that income threshold, making them the absolute top of the income scale.

Plus, at the end of the day, even if a millionaire makes his millions via a business that is considered small, the income tax is levied on take-home pay, not business profits. Anyone taking home $1 million annually should be taxed like a millionaire.

“We voted to fully repeal the president’s healthcare law as one of our first acts as a new House majority, and our plan remains to repeal the law in its entirety,” Boehner said to reporters. “Anything short of that is unacceptable.”

But Republicans have yet to offer a viable alternative that would that would fill the void left by the law and provide coverage to the 30 million Americans who would lose insurance without Obamacare. Politico reported this morning that GOP leaders have quietly begun to float a piecemeal plan that may provide limited insurance coverage to a small portion of the uninsured. Republicans have said they would preserve the most popular provisions, like allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26, without the individual mandate that helps pay for the regulations.

But the GOP’s internal disagreement and unwillingness to offer a unified comprehensive plan suggests that they consider health care a low legislative priority. For instance, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) — the GOP’s spokesman on economic issues — told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that the party will “articulate our vision” to replace the law, but wouldn’t necessarily offer a legislative solution.

This approach contrasts sharply from Republican’s pledge to “replace” reform as soon as it became law in 2010. Boehner promised in 2010 to “replace it with common-sense reforms,” and Ryan said in a 2011 speech that Republicans can’t stop at simply repealing the law and “have a responsibility to fix the broken network of government policies that have made such a mess of health care.”

But now that their strategy looks like nothing more than tossing out a law that helps expand access to health insurance while controlling costs, Republicans are telling the uninsured and those worried about rising health care costs that they are not concerned about fixing their problems.

But while Republicans have accused the Democrats of playing politics with women’s domestic safety, the opposite may actually be true.

In a sit-down with bloggers on Capitol Hill today, DNC Chair and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) told reporters that she’d heard House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) actually ordered his caucus to move VAWA as far to the right as possible:

RYAN GRIM of the Huffington Post: I’d heard that the Republican leadership wasn’t very happy with the committee for going how far right they went with this. Had you heard anything that–

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Actually, I’d heard that this was a direct directive from John Boehner himself. So…

GRIM: What’s the thinking in that?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: You know, I think their obsession with opposing immigration at every possible turn has permeated every single possible bill, including things that are normally as mom and apple pie as reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act.

VAWA has been passed and reauthorized twice with strong bipartisan support. Each reauthorization has expanded the bill and added new provisions. This year, the Senate passed VAWA in a 68 to 31 vote, after some debate, with the added provisions intact to protect LGBT, undocumented, and Native people. The House version of VAWA does not include these protections.

And while Republicans may have rectified the portion of their original bill that violated the confidentiality of victims by adding a manager’s amendment, the bill still seriously weakens the visa program extended to undocumented victims of domestic abuse, so that they are put in a position of fear in reporting assault.

The episode is widely regarded as an embarrassment for good governance and a blow for the economy. Standard & Poor’s, even with the deal, downgraded America’s credit rating, citing the GOP’s complete intransigence regarding revenue increases. But it seems Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) is ready to write the sequel, as he will reportedly demand today that the next increase in the debt limit follow the same GOP criteria:

In a speech Tuesday, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) plans to address the issue of national debt, which will once again be nearing its legal limit in January, just as the tax hikes and spending cuts are due to hit.

According to advance remarks provided to The Post, Boehner will insist that any increase in the debt limit be accompanied by spending “cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase” — the same demand that pushed the Treasury to the brink of default during last summer’s debt-limit standoff.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the cuts demanded by the GOP in exchange for raising the debt limit will cost the economy 1.8 million jobs this year. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner already pushed back on Boehner’s remarks, saying, “this commitment to meet the obligations of the nation, this commitment to protect the creditworthiness of the country, is a fundamental commitment that you can never call into question or violate.”

Some members of the party, however, just want to ignore the issue altogether. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who has supported using taxpayer funds to defend DOMA, dismissed the focus on marriage equality as a distraction from important concerns like jobs and the economy:

The speaker suggested the reignited debate over gay marriage is a distraction to other legislative business on Capitol Hill, especially considering the state of the economy.

“Republicans here on Capitol Hill are focused in on the economy,” he said. “The American people are still asking the question, ‘Where are the jobs?’ and our focus is going to continue to be on the economy like it has been for the last year and a half.”

But if jobs and the economy are the Speaker’s focus, he might be pleased to learn that legalizing same-sex marriage has had a strong positive impact on state and local economies, brought in money for tourism, lodging and wedding planning, and offered much-needed relief to state budgets:

– MASSACHUSETTS: A 2009 study found that “marriages have had a positive economic effect on Massachusetts -– likely providing a boost of over $100 million to the state economy.” “Same-sex couples’ weddings injected significant spending into the Massachusetts economy and brought out-of-state guests to the state, whose spending also added to the economic boost,” it concluded.

– IOWA: Last year, a study found that same-sex marriages brought as much as $13 million in new spending to Iowa in the year since the state Supreme Court overturned a ban.

– MARYLAND: A report last month from the Maryland Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce found that the recently passed marriage equality law could boost the state’s economy by $90 million a year if it survives a November referendum.

– ILLINOIS: In March, a study from the Williams Institute predicted that legalizing marriage equality would boost Illinois’ economy by between $39 and $72 million over three years, and bring in as much as $8 million in tax revenue.

– NEW JERSEY: The Williams Institute also found that legalizing marriage equality in New Jersey could add $119 million to the state’s economy over three years, along with $8 million in tax revenue.

– RHODE ISLAND: One state that has not legalized same-sex marriage, Rhode Island, could be losing as much as $8 million a year. Why? Because same-sex couples simply travel to Massachusetts to get married. Rhode Island recognizes same-sex marriages from out of state but only allows civil unions within its borders.

– NATIONALLY: A CBO report found that repealing DOMA could actually improve the federal budget by just under $1 billion in each of the next ten years, but only if marriage equality was legal in all fifty states and recognized by the federal government.

-Zachary Bernstein

That lawsuit claims that Maj. Shannon McLaughlin of the Massachusetts National Guard and her partner Casey are denied benefits that similarly situated opposite-sex couples enjoy as a result of the 1996 law, which “violates constitutional equal protection guarantees,” “the Tenth Amendment and constitutional principles of federalism.” DOMA prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex couples.

The House Republican leadership — in the form of the The House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group — agreed to defend the discriminatory treatment after Obama administration announced that it will not argue on behalf laws that prevent married same-sex couples from obtaining military benefits. Metro Weekly’s Chris Geidner has more:

The move is similar to BLAG’s action in a similar case brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Cooper-Harris v. United States, in which equal veterans benefits are being sought. BLAG, which is controlled by the House Republican leadership, has intervened in several DOMA challenges to defend the 1996 law after the Obama administration stopped defending the federal definition of marriage in February 2011, when Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder concluded the law was unconstitutional.

In a statement today, SLDN executive director Aubrey Sarvis said, “Speaker Boehner’s request to defend this case in the wake of the ongoing harm done to military families by these discriminatory laws is reprehensible and callous.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) office immediately condemned the action, noting, “The men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces risk their lives for the country they love and do not deserve to face prejudice, especially from our nation’s elected leaders, when they return home. Speaker Boehner should grant the request of Leader Pelosi and Whip Hoyer for a vote of the BLAG on the expanded DOMA defense efforts regarding veterans cases and allow the Committee on House Administration and the Ethics Committee to review any new contracts or additional expenditures of taxpayer funds.”

This is the 12th case in which Boehner has intervened and it comes as the head of his party fails to stand up to the anti-gay wing of the conservative movement.

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

This Sunday, during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) was asked about the House Republicans’ plan to avoid an increase in student loan interest rates by taking money from a health care fund that particularly benefits women. The Prevention and Public Health Fund, created by the Affordable Care Act, provides states and communities with funds for “promoting wellness, preventing disease, and protecting against public health emergencies.”

But Boehner, noting that the Obama administration had earlier agreed to take some money out of the account to pay for the payroll tax cut extension, claimed that none of the money in the account benefits women. He told Crowley:

CROWLEY: We have [House Democratic Leader] Nancy Pelosi out there saying, well, they want to protect the big oil companies because they want to pay for the student loan interest rates by closing loopholes in the oil industry and we want to protect women’s health. We want to prevent breast cancer and cervical cancer and that’s what this fund is for.

BOEHNER: That is just nonsense. There’s no women’s health issue here.

CROWLEY: It’s a preventive fund, isn’t it?

BOEHNER: I’ll guarantee you they’ve not spent a dime out of this fund dealing with anything to do with women’s health.

Watch the video:

Boehner’s statement is absolutely false. The fund has already been used to provide health care workforce development and public health initiatives to combat diseases like obesity, diabetes and HIV/AIDS. It will soon invest millions more in cancer screenings, immunizations, and detection of birth defects — benefits with particularly benefit women. Already, $17 million from the fund has gone to grants in Boehner’s own state of Ohio to provide community prevention, clinical prevention, public health infrastructure and training, and research and data collection.

Rather than protect student loan rates by ending special corporate tax breaks for hugely profitable oil companies, Boehner is asking Americans to choose between enabling students to afford college and investing in preventative care for women and children.

Asked by CNN’s Candy Crowley whether Romney’s wealth presented him with a “hill to climb” in tough economic times, Boehner said it wouldn’t because “the American people don’t want to vote for a loser”:

CROWLEY: You know, he comes from a privileged background. You did not come from a privileged background. This is a time — an economic time when people are hurting and have been hurting for quite some time.

Do you think that someone who is as wealthy as he is, who has had as much privilege as he is, has a hill to climb to overcome that?

BOEHNER: No. The American people don’t want to vote for a loser. They don’t want to vote for someone that hasn’t been successful. I think Mitt Romney has an opportunity to show the American people that they, too, can succeed.

Romney has consistently reminded voters of his wealth, noting that he is friends with the owners of NASCAR and pro football teams, that his wife has “a couple of Cadillacs,” or that he doesn’t consider $374,000 in speaking fees to be “very much.” That top Republicans consider Americans who don’t enjoy those luxuries losers or unsuccessful, however, may be why its nominee has had such a tough time gaining favor with average voters throughout the 2012 election.

Will Boehner put a stop to the heel dragging over wind tax credits? AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

A new survey shows that Ohio — the home state of House Speaker John Boehner — supports between 5,000 and 6,000 jobs in the wind industry.

But those jobs are now under imminent threat as a key tax credit for the industry nears expiration at the end of this year.

Just this week, a wind company in Ohio said it will abandon plans for a $20 million, 54-turbine project without an extension of the production tax credit (PTC). The project would create between 150-200 construction jobs for Ohioans, according to Everpower Renewables, the company building the wind farm.

The cost and price of wind electricity have come down steadily in recent years, allowing wind companies to sign power purchase agreements for as little as a few cents per kilowatt-hour. However, the glut of supply in the natural gas sector — a sector that enjoys numerous permanent tax credits for drilling and production — has made it difficult for wind producers to compete without an equivalent tax credit.

The PTC provides an owner of a wind farm with a tax credit of 2.2 cents for every kilowatt-hour of renewable electricity generated. The credit has allowed the wind industry to compete with the heavily-subsidized fossil fuel industry and expand dramatically throughout the U.S.

Under Speaker Boehner, the House of Representatives has failed to extend this key tax credit for wind — even with very strong support from many Republicans. 47 members of the Senate has also balked on the credits, voting to preserve $24 billion in oil and gas industry tax credits, while voting down the PTC for the wind industry.

In the last five years, wind has brought $20 billion of annual private investment to the U.S., according to the American Wind Energy Association. There are now 75,000 jobs across the country in wind manufacturing, operations, maintenance and education.

With the PTC under threat, the industry says it expects around 37,000 job losses in the coming year. The wind turbine manufacturer Vestas (which, coincidentally, provided the wind turbines for Ohio’s first wind project) says it will lay off 1,600 American workers if the credit is not extended.

There are reportedly no U.S. new wind projects in the works for 2013 due to the uncertainty around tax credits.

Over the last few months, numerous coalitions of bi-partisan political leaders have sent letters to Congress urging immediate passage of the PTC. Congress has continually failed to act.

Speaker Boehner says that jobs are his top priority for 2012. And he has the opportunity to save hundreds — if not thousands — in his own home state just by helping pass a simple extension of the wind tax credit.

House Republicans convened the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) to defend the constitutionality of DOMA since the Obama administration announced that it is unconstitutional in February of 2010, but this is the first case in which Beohner is also defending Title 38.

“[W]e strongly object to spending taxpayer money to intervene in this case against a decorated veteran, Tracey Cooper-Harris, and her spouse, Maggie Cooper-Harris,” Pelosi and Hoyer write in their letter. “This decision clearly exceeds the scope of the original BLAG authorization, with which we initially disagreed”:

This intervention once again puts the House of Representatives on the wrong side of the future – supporting discrimination, unfairness, and the denial of basic equality to all Americans. We have objected to prior decisions by the House Republican BLAG members to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to defend discrimination. This latest decision not only ignores the civil rights of LGBT Americans but opens a new, direct assault on veterans. The men and women of our Armed Forces serve with courage and dignity on behalf of our safety and security. They risk their lives for the country they love – and they should not face prejudice at home because of whom they love. These brave soldiers deserve nothing less than our gratitude, our respect, and the benefits they have earned in battle.

Pelosi and Hoyer are calling for “a formal vote of the BLAG on extending your defense of discrimination to veterans and their families” and a full examination by the Committee on House Administration and the House Ethics Committee of any “extension of the existing legal contract, any new contract, and any additional expenditure of public funds on behalf of outside counsel.” Democratic lawmakers have long raised questions about the GOP’s efforts to spend taxpayer dollars on DOMA and have asked Boehner to divert the resources to investigate the Trayvon Martin shooting.

Boehner's absurd investigation is enough to make a grown man cry.

by Richard W. Caperton

Here we go again.

After spending the last year investigating the scandal-free DOE Loan Guarantee Program, House Republicans have thrown in the towel.  Instead of getting down to serious business, though (like, extending the Production Tax Credit), they’ve decided to waste more time and taxpayer money investigating another clean energy incentive: the Section 1603 tax credit reimbursement program.

Here’s what Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) had to say on this topic yesterday:

“You know, I made clear earlier this year that oversight of the Obama administration’s policies on jobs, on the economy, and its spending taxpayer dollars was going to be a priority. Two weeks ago, Chairman Upton at the Energy & Commerce Committee began looking into the Department of Energy’s Section 1603 grant program, a Solyndra-style ‘stimulus’ program that offers cash payments to renewable energy companies. More than $10 billion – that’s with a ‘b’ — $10 billion has been spent on this, and Secretary Chu said it created ‘tens of thousands of jobs,’ except there’s no evidence to support that.

“The Energy & Commerce Committee set a deadline for today for the Energy Department & Treasury Department to produce documents or information about what taxpayers got for their $10 billion. The administration thus far has failed to provide the committee with any information to justify this claim.

“Listen, the American people continue to ask the question ‘Where are the jobs?’ They deserve answers and they deserve the truth.”

Fair enough. Americans deserve to know the truth, and here it is: the 1603 program led to thousands of clean energy jobs, leveraged billions of dollars in private investment, and helped clean energy industries grow despite tough economic times.

You know how you can tell that Boehner is not interested in the truth?  The entire premise of this investigation is based on a misleading statement, that the 1603 program is a “Solyndra-style” program.

Let’s be clear: the 1603 program and the Loan Guarantee Program are fundamentally different.  The Loan Guarantee Program was designed to address shortcomings in financial markets, which prevented clean energy companies from getting loans. To fix this, companies could apply for a loan guarantee from DOE, and the agency gave guarantees to a small number of applicants.  As Herb Allison found in an independent review of the loan guarantee program, DOE managed the program effectively and has accurately accounted for the program’s risk.

The 1603 program, on the other hand, was designed to address the lack of tax equity financing after the economic crisis. After the collapse of the financial markets, clean energy companies found it impossible to use tax credits. Typically, these companies sell tax credits to so-called “tax equity investors” – i.e. companies with enough taxable profits to take advantage of the credits.  But these tax equity investors disappeared during the financial crisis, so the government stepped in and directly reimbursed clean energy companies for their tax credit. As I wrote two years ago, this is a more efficient and cost-effective system, for both the company and the government.

Now, we have three years of experience with the program and we know that the results back up the initial expectations.  Because of the 1603 program, investments in wind and solar soared from 2009 to 2011, and the domestic clean energy manufacturing sector also grew.

Speaker Boehner seems to think that this program hasn’t created any jobs.  This simply doesn’t make any sense.  More than 5,000 projects were built with Section 1603 reimbursements.  Obviously, wind farms and solar arrays don’t appear out of thin air: people build them. And, people build the parts that go into them. And, people build the factories where those parts are made.  All of these jobs are real jobs, and they all matter.  As an example of how these jobs add up, a study by EuPD Research found that extending the Section 1603 program for one year would create 37,000 jobs in the solar sector alone.

This program has also brought many billions of dollars off of the sidelines and into clean energy investments.  Each $1 in reimbursements must be matched by more than $2 in private capital.  This means that the Section 1603 program leveraged more than $20 billion.

Despite Speaker Boehner’s bluster, it’s clear that the Section 1603 program has been a responsible, cost-effective success.  Boehner doesn’t even have any new information that would suggest otherwise, so it’s clear that this is just another fishing expedition led by the House Republicans. We saw what happened with the Solyndra investigation. Why are we wasting more time and money with this made up problem? Especially when the program was an unqualified success!

If Speaker Boehner wants to tackle a real scandal, let me suggest one: I can look at every 1603 reimbursement recipient, and learn that Udder View Farms in Washington got $4,970 on July 11, 2011, to help them build a solar thermal system. I can find this information for all $11,012,886,778 that’s been distributed through this program.

But, the government gives $4 billion worth of tax breaks to oil companies every year, and we have absolutely zero idea what we get for that money! We don’t know which companies benefit.  We don’t know what they do with the money. And, we certainly don’t know if the tax breaks create a single job. If they’re looking for something to investigate, Congress should look into what taxpayers get back for every single one of those $4 billion.

Richard W. Caperton is Director of Clean Energy Investments at the Center for American Progress.

House Republicans are attempting a similar strategy now, just two days before the government’s spending authority for transportation expires. The Senate passed a bipartisan transportation bill last week, while House Republican leadership has struggled to get its conservative flank on board with any of its proposals.

Democrats have indeed blocked versions of the House’s disastrous transportation bill in an effort to get the bipartisan Senate bill, which garnered 22 Republican votes, passed through the House. But Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has ignored the Senate bill and has been unable to line up Republicans behind any of his proposals. Now, his spokesperson is attempting to blame Democrats for the GOP leadership’s inability to pass an extension, The Hill reports:

A spokesman for Boehner said Wednesday that the GOP had only moved to consideration of a 60-day extension because Democrats had said they would support it. The spokesman, Michael Steel, said that the fate of the extension of transportation funding is now “up to Democratic leadership.”

“It’s their choice as to whether to work in a bipartisan fashion or play political games with our country’s economy,” Steel said in a statement.

At least one Republican recognizes how ridiculous the GOP’s attempts to blame Democrats are. Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-OH) told reporters Wednesday that the GOP’s strategy was to “pray the Senate doesn’t call our bluff.”

The Senate’s two-year package would save an estimated 1.9 million jobs and create as many as 1 million more, according to the bill’s bipartisan sponsors. In the event of a shutdown, the Highway Trust Fund, which funds infrastructure projects, would lose $110 million a day in gas tax revenues, and states would be forced to delay entire transportation projects. Instead of passing that bill, though, House Republicans are planning to pass a short-term extension before skipping town for recess, leaving the Senate to clean up their mess.

LAUER: You talk about the economy. Is it recovering?

BOEHNER: It is. There are certainly signs of life. But I would argue that it should be doing a lot better. It’s doing better in spite of what Washington is doing to the economy.

LAUER: But it does put some Republicans in a difficult position. You’ve got better job numbers, you’ve got better manufacturing numbers, consumer debt is down, consumer confidence is up. Isn’t it hard to run against a recovering economy?

BOEHNER: But Matt, my point is it should be doing better.

Watch it:

A slew of Republicans, acknowledging that continuing to bash the economy in spite of the good news that keeps coming out may not be a workable strategy, have pivoted to claiming credit for the recovery. But thus far, Republican leaders like Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor have not followed suit. As we’ve noted, the employment picture would have been significantly better were it not for the Republican insistence on cutting federal spending and laying off hundreds of thousands of public employees.

Boehner’s pick was Robert P. George, co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage, a group making headlines this week for its confidential memos revealing an intent to divide racial groups and scare parents as tactics to oppose marriage equality. George has explicitly participated in the effort to paint gays and lesbians as a threat to children through the Preserve Innocence project, for which he made a video warning about President Obama’s appointment of Kevin Jennings as Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. He also helped draft the Manhattan Declaration, which encourages Christians to defy the law to uphold their anti-gay, anti-choice beliefs. By working to ban same-sex marriage, George eagerly imposes upon the religious freedom of all faiths who support the freedom to marry.

George shares a connection to his fellow new appointee through their promotion of Islamophobia. McConnell appointed Zuhdi Jasser for his pick, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Most see Jasser as a “mere sock puppet” for those who spread animosity about the Muslim community, and Jasser’s group in turn has called the leadership of many U.S. Muslim groups “malignant.” He has testified before Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) “radicalization” of Islam hearings and supports spying on innocent Muslims. Both Jasser’s group and the Bradley Foundation (of which George is a board member) featured heavily in last year’s Fear, Inc. report by the Center for American Progress, documenting the roots of the U.S. Islamophobia network. The Washington Post mistakenly described George as having a “less controversial profile” than Jasser.

These appointments are further evidence that the Republican agenda is not about defending so-called “religious liberty,” but about ensuring that their conservative values continue to have a prominent voice over other points of view.

Since the current round of government funding runs out in September, the GOP’s decision to cut deeper than the Budget Control Act sets up another round of budget brinkmanship, with a government shutdown as a possible consequence. But back in September, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) seemed to believe that such brinkmanship should be avoided, saying during a pen and pad briefing that the GOP should stick to the spending level agreed to in August, at least when it came to a continuing resolution that was under consideration at the time:

Q: On the CR next week, will you do it at the level that you agreed to in August, the 1.043?

CANTOR: As Republicans, we believe strongly we ought to be reducing spending more than we have been able to. The other side has demonstrated unwillingness to join us in that. We did reach an agreement at the CR level and I am supportive of a CR being written at that level.

Q: So you would not go below it?

CANTOR: I think my colleague here would say we would try always to go below it. But the risk of bringing about brinksmanship or another potential shutdown is not something that we need right now, it is not something that would be helpful, that would create jobs and regain confidence, which is why I have taken the position I have.

During a December press conference, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) also promised that “the 1.043 [trillion] is going to happen,” referring to the spending level set by the Budget Control Act. But in the intervening few months, it seems that the GOP leadership has decided that yet another drive at the edge of the proverbial shutdown cliff is preferable to abiding by the terms of a deal passed just last year.

And according to Reuters, that pressure has paid off, as both Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-OH) are ready to cut below the level specified in the debt ceiling deal:

Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives are ready to break a hard-fought budget deal with Democrats as they try to quell a revolt by conservatives who are insisting on deeper spending cuts ahead of the November elections.

House Republican aides said on Tuesday that House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor were pressing for a modest $19 billion reduction of discretionary spending caps in this year’s Republican budget plan.

“I’m really disappointed that they’re considering a budget – violating the budget agreement that is now the law of this country. This was designed to avoid another government shutdown or a threat of a shutdown,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). “We had a deal last August on the budget numbers, and we expect them to live with that deal,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) has said. The end result of this standoff could be yet another impending government shutdown, as the government’s current spending authority expires on September 30.