There were two issues on which voters spoke loudly and clearly at the midterms in November: Obamacare and amnesty.
Their opinion was that they didn’t want either.
Which prompted the launch of the ongoing Don’t be Yellow, Dump Boehner Now! campaign, which enables citizens to let all 246 GOP members of the House majority know of their opposition to allowing Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, to remain House Speaker.
It was because of those two issues, and Boehner’s compromise with President Obama just a few weeks after his party’s resounding election victories to continue funding for the president’s Obamacare and amnesty programs, that the letter campaign, which already has generated more than 570,000 messages to GOP members of the House, was launched.
But the news about the programs just appears to keep getting worse.
Regarding Obamacare, some new taxes are kicking in this year, there are higher penalties, and more requirements, prompting one commentator in Forbes to say of the program, “When you add taxes, it can be like lemon juice in a paper cut.”
The commentary from Forbes contributor Robert W. Wood dealt with some of the developing hits of Obamacare, including “a new 3.8 percent tax,” additional required forms, possible “estimated tax penalties” and the like.
There may be “flak,” Wood concluded, from taxpayers who had calculated that enough of their income was withheld for taxes but will find out that’s not correct. Or from those who had not calculated much higher penalties that the IRS will assess against them.
And regarding amnesty, the House has already approved a plan to defund the efforts, but there still has to be a vote in the Senate, which will happen.
In a “listless” fashion, according to a report from Neil Munro at the Daily Caller.
He quoted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying, “We’re going to try to pass [the House bill]. If we’re unable to do that, we’ll see what happens.”
But, said Munro, “They’re also signaling to the Democratic establishment and the media that their part of the joint effort to pass the funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security will be insincere and half-hearted.”
He continued, “The Senate’s actions are all for show, not to win, another GOP leader suggested.”
“Obviously we want to give our members an opportunity to vote to express their opposition to the president’s action but we also realize at the end of the day in the Senate it’s going to take 60 votes,” Sen. John Thune said, in the report.
The report quoted a GOP staffer, “The goal is to find a path to victory [in 2016] without the base, and the best way to do that is to make the [campaign] issue about anything other than immigration.”
The report noted a recent Pew survey showed 82 percent of Republicans oppose Obama’s amnesty plan.
In addition to boxes and boxes of thousands of letters each, members of the voting public already have targeted Congress with phone calls unhappy about Boehner’s leadership on the issues.
The Washington Examiner reported: “There were hundreds of them, jamming the phone lines of the district and Capitol offices of dozens of House GOP lawmakers. The callers were not angry about legislation. Nor were they asking for help with a local matter. They were demanding their representative vote against Boehner … in his bid to win election to a third term as speaker.”
And there’s a move involving a couple of dozen House members to create a new caucus that would urge bold, conservative actions on immigration, Obamacare and more.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has been working on the new part of the party, and said in a Gannett report: “If you set small goals, you’re not likely to accomplish big things. Our party had better understand what is at stake. We had better get it.”
The report explained Jordan is working to form a new caucus of those who want to move the GOP, including its leadership, into bold action on immigration, spending and more.
“The idea is to leverage the Republican sweep in November’s elections into conservative victories in Congress – and to serve as a check on the GOP leadership if they move too far toward the middle … to compromise with the White House and congressional Democrats,” the report said.
Boxes with thousands of letters from the “Dump Boehner” campaign have been delivered to the 246 GOP members in the House already. Boehner won re-election to the post when the House convened early this month, but opposition remains.
There also have been a few outspoken blasts at Boehner from his own party, a rarity for a House speaker.
Politico reported Rep. Richard Nugent, R-Fla., who was one of the dozens of House members who voted against Boehner’s campaign for the speaker’s post, said: “I don’t believe that John Boehner is the best man for the job. This may surprise some people (including the speaker) but it has far more to do with his leadership abilities than it does with his conservatism.
“What I mean by that is that if you can’t lead and you can’t deliver, then your own personal political philosophy is pretty much irrelevant. I’ve gone into far more detail about this criticism with him privately than I will here, but suffice it to say that there have been far too many occasions over the last four years where the House has been ineffective, and America just can’t wait any longer. America needs vision, a sense of purpose and an ability to follow through. We aren’t getting those things.”
Joseph Farah, WND founder and campaign organizer, said the opposition to Boehner is based on the Obamacare and amnesty issues.
It has earned the support of the founder of Tea Party Nation, one of the organizations that helped rouse the American electorate in 2010 and give the GOP control of the U.S. House.
“Absolutely, I want people storming the halls of Congress,” Judson Phillips told WND. “Melting the phone lines and anything else.”
“So, I love [WND CEO Joseph Farah’s] letter writing idea.”
Phillips went to the commentary pages of the Washington Times to say why he thinks Boehner should be replaced.
“A month after its incredible victory, the GOP squandered its mandate, surrendering to the Democrats,” he wrote. “The GOP-led House of Representatives did not proclaim its mandate and hold off on major decisions until the Republican majority in the Senate was sworn in. No, they went to the GOP position of preemptive surrender and gave President Obama and the Democrats almost everything they wanted.
“Despite the pleas and demands from the base, the GOP did nothing to stop Mr. Obama’s executive amnesty. They even rewarded left-wing billionaires who had spent millions to keep the Democrats in power by extending so-called ‘Green Energy’ subsidies,” he wrote. “The architect of the Republican surrender was House Speaker John Boehner.”
JOIN THE DON’T BE YELLOW, DUMP BOEHNER NOW CAMPAIGN.
The letter explains to members of the U.S. House that two issues have “prompted Americans to turn in droves to the Republican Party in November 2014 – Barack Obama’s blatantly unconstitutional executive action to provide amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, and the deliberately deceptive restructuring of America’s health-care system through Obamacare, which threatens to unravel the greatest health delivery system in the world.”
Pointing out that Republicans before the election “solemnly vowed to STOP this lame-duck president,” the letter states: “Now you have the power, right and duty to stop him.
“But it won’t happen with John Boehner leading you. You know this to be true. The trillion-dollar budget deal is just the latest proof that Boehner is not capable of leading the House to victory during this critical period.”
The campaign allows people to send letters, with their own names and addresses via FedEx, all for the one price of $29.95, to each of the House GOP members.
