It’s time for John Boehner to retire

By FLOYD and MARY BETH BROWN
It’s clear. There will be no stopping Obamacare. There will be no justice on Benghazi-gate. There will be no stopping Barack Obama’s unconstitutional usurpations and abuses of power as long as John Boehner holds the reins of power as the Republican Speaker of the House.
It’s time for John Boehner to retire. He should let a younger leader with more will to fight Obama take leadership in the U.S. House.
The situation is so dire, that without new leadership the Republican Party could actually dissolve into rival factions. He is even considering caving into Barack Obama’s drive for a massive tax increase. We stand on the precipice of a total capitulation of the Republican agenda by Speaker Boehner.
We need real leaders to challenge Obama. As long as John Boehner remains speaker of the House; Obamacare will remain the law of the land.
Back on July 1, 2012, just four short months ago, Boehner marched in front of the cameras on “Meet the Press” and vowed to do whatever it takes to stop Obamacare. Practically thumping his chest, he said: “It has to be ripped out by its roots.” And he added: “We will not flinch from our resolve to make sure this law is repealed in its entirety.”
Taking him at his word, 127 members of the House, led by Representatives Jim Jordan and Michele Bachmann reminded Mr. Boehner that he had the ability to actually keep that promise and signed off on a letter asking Boehner to take the lead and allow the House of Representatives to finally wield its legitimate and constitutionally granted power of the purse to “rescind all Obamacare implementation funds.”
Don’t be deceived by anything you hear on the nightly news, the sad and simple truth is that John Boehner and House Republicans already had —and still have — the power to stop the implementation of Obamacare.
They had that power from the very day that Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives back in January of 2010, and they have that power at this very moment.
Mr. Boehner simply needs to hold a simple up-or-down vote in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives to deny Obamacare funding and Barack Obama and Harry Reid can’t do anything to stop it. It really is that simple.
The problem is not that Republicans can’t stop the implementation of Obamacare. The problem is that the so-called GOP leadership won’t stop Obamacare, and that’s why we need a change in leadership.
So what’s Boehner’s excuse?
Boehner apparently has his reasons. We call them excuses. His surrogates argued that Boehner’s refusal to fund Obamacare could set the stage for Barack Obama to exact his revenge, by ordering a “government shutdown” and blame it on Republicans.
We say let Mr. Obama take his best shot. At some point, the rubber has got to meet the road.
We don’t need to concede defeat. A “government shutdown” is not only not as bad as you’ve been lead to believe, it’s also the last thing Barack Obama wants. It puts a stop to Obama’s out-of-control spending.
What we need is a true leader at the helm who is not afraid to call Barack Obama’s bluff and negotiate from a position of strength and that man is not John Boehner.
©2012 Floyd and Mary Beth Brown. The Browns are bestselling authors and speakers. To comment on this column, e-mail browns@caglecartoons.com. Together they write a national weekly column distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Floyd is also president of the Western Center for Journalism.
This column has been edited by the author. Representations of fact and opinions are solely those of the author.
Published in The Messenger 12.3.12

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