VP Biden Attacks Boehner
As Congress has shifted its
main point of emphasis from the budget to immigration reform, House Republicans
have moved slowly on immigration reform while the Senate has already passed a
bill. Not only have the House Republican’s not combined their efforts with the
already-passed Senate bill to reach a compromise, Boehner stated publically
that he has “no intention of ever going to
conference on the Senate bill." (1)
Joe Biden, who is the Vice President of the
United States took Boehner to task this week by strongly criticizing Boehner
for refusing, "to fix a broken system" by failing to work with the
Senate on U.S. immigration reform. (2) The Vice President
took his comments towards Boehner a step further by saying that Boehner, “will
not allow the House to play by fair play - the American way, to let the
Congress actually vote their conscience to fix a broken system. This is a step
backward in the history of the country."
By refusing to negotiate or go to conference
with the Senate on the immigration reform bill, Boehner is basically putting any
chance for substantial change to our countries policy on immigration on life
support. Conversely, It seems as if Boehner doesn’t want anything the House
passes to become a vehicle for going to conference with the Senate because many
believe conservatives would be against this. As we have noted many times on
this blog, Boehner is in a conundrum with his own party. He has to toe the line
and pander to the conservatives in order to maintain his position as Speaker of
the House, but he must also do what he believes is best for the country and his
constituents. By refusing to conference with the Senate, Boehner is in essence
closing off one of the last routes to getting reform done. (3)
With these facts in mind, Vice
President Biden attacked Boehner because the White House knows that without
Boehner being willing to go to conference, immigration reform will be extremely
difficult to pass. Another point of note is that this might be one of the last major
issues President Obama can tackle before he enters the twilight and lame duck
of his presidency. When this happens, he will effectively be unable to propose
much change, and by refusing to conference with the house, Boehner is also attempting
to stop President Obama from accomplishing one of the last major things he’s
set out to do during his time in office. Also, with the mid-term elections
right around the corner, don’t look for the Republicans to attempt make any
major concessions on immigration reform, as they don’t want to back themselves into
another corner if they can avoid it.
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