'Chicken crap?'

House Majority Leader John Boehner has a reputation for being colorful. No, I’m not talking about his orange skin — I’m talking about his blue language.

See, yesterday, Mr. Boehner got really frustrated with the fact that he’s still in the minority. The Democratic majority in the House did today what they should have done months ago — and repeated once a week until they prevailed — when they forced a vote on extending President Obama’s middle-class tax cuts while allowing the Bush tax increases on the rich to take effect.

Boehner told reporters: “I’m trying to catch my breath so I don’t refer to this maneuver that is going on today as chicken crap, all right.”

Mr. Boehner was once a fan of “chicken crap.” He endorsed this plan on a Sunday talking-heads show, saying, “If the only option I have is to vote for those at $250,000 and below, of course I’m going to do that.” Guess what America? When given the option, Boehner broke his word. He caved in to the extremists who danced on his head when he endorsed the “chicken crap” and flip-flopped on his promise to vote against the Obama tax cuts for the middle class — tax cuts that would have stopped the Bush tax increases for 98.6 percent of Americans.

Of course, Boehner wasn’t alone; all but three House Republicans joined him in support of the Bush tax increases. Why? Because they insist that the Bush tax increases on the wealthy must be stopped or else nobody gets a tax cut!

Boehner and his dishonest cohorts talk about the need to reduce the deficit and control the debt out of one side of their mouths, but out the other demand that we add $800 billion per year to the deficit to give non-offset tax breaks to the country’s richest 1.6 percent.

Meanwhile, they lockstep oppose extending $56 billion for 12 months of federal unemployment benefits to out-of-work Americans this Christmas even though they did just that seven times during the Bush administration. Unemployment benefits have been identified as the best way for government to spur the economy, with economists calculating that each $1 in benefits produces $1.60 in economic activity.

Do the math there. Republicans are NO on Obama’s tax cuts for the middle class, NO on unemployment benefits for jobless Americans at $56 billion, but YES to tax breaks for the wealthiest 1.6 percent at $800 billion. Due to this mindless sham of an economic policy, 2 million Americans will see their benefits cut off by Christmas.

I’ll give it to John Boehner. With policy positions like that, he’s Congress’s foremost expert on chicken crap.

David Di Martino is CEO of Blue Line Strategic Communications Inc. The views expressed in this blog are his and do not necessarily represent Blue Line’s. Follow David: @bluelinedd

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