Player of the Week: John Boehner

This will be a trying week for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). 

From a policy perspective, it can be argued that Boehner and his GOP colleagues in Congress are winning the budget battle. 

After all, the White House and congressional Democrats initially wanted to freeze federal spending. But now, in large part because of pressure from Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the spending debate is not whether to cut, it’s over how much.

Yet, politically, Boehner finds himself in a very difficult position, because many of his GOP colleagues have big asks for fiscal 2011.

They want $61 billion in cuts. The number won’t be that high.

They want to defund Planned Parenthood and the implementation of healthcare reform. They want to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its power to regulate carbon emissions.

But those amendments seem unlikely to be included in any bipartisan deal.

So Boehner has a choice: Accept a compromise or shut down the government. 

It’s likely he will do the former, though selling the bill to his GOP conference will not be easy.

Boehner and other Republican lawmakers have already started to try to shift attention away from fiscal 2011 spending. Instead, they are touting the House GOP’s fiscal 2012 spending blueprint, scheduled to be released Tuesday. 

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) proposal, details of which were reported last week in The Hill, calls for major changes to Medicare and Medicaid. It has already attracted strong criticism from Democrats.

Boehner has some time to round up votes on the 2012 plan, but his pressing concern is to secure 218 votes to pass the 2011 budget, which would avert a shutdown.

To get there, he’ll need to get a fair amount of Democratic votes — and that will require a rare alliance with President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

---