Boehner Frustrated With Any Opposition to Budget Deal That Raises Spending

The Republican Party’s establishment continues to make its
uselessness in reining in government growth in any place but an
imagined future clearer and clearer, as
reported in Business Insider:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) snapped at conservative
groups that have come out in opposition to the
budget deal reached Wednesday between Rep. Paul Ryan
(R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). 

“They’re using the American people for their own purposes. This
is ridiculous,” Boehner said at a press conference with other
members of House Republican leadership on Wednesday….

In the past three days, the influential Heritage Action, Club
for Growth, Americans for Prosperity, and FreedomWorks have all
signaled they would oppose the deal. They have all argued that
while imperfect, the sequester has provided the only effective
check on the Obama administration’s spending….

When Boehner was asked in the press conference about the
conservative groups, he cut off the reporter asking the
question. 

“You mean the groups that came out opposed to it before they
ever saw it?” he said. “… If you’re for more deficit
reduction, you’re for this agreement.”

Soon after the press conference, the groups denounced Boehner’s
comments. Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said that the
group stood with the likes of Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz
(R-Texas), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), all of whom
oppose the deal. 

“After carefully reviewing the budget deal, on which we never
commented until it was complete, we determined that it would
increase the size of government,” Chocola said. “We support
pro-growth proposals when they are considered by Congress. In our
evaluation, this isn’t one of those.”

Rand Paul’s
opposition to the Ryan-Murray plan:

“The small sequester spending cuts were not nearly enough
to address our deficit problem,” Paul said in a statement. “Undoing
tens of billions of this modest spending restraint is shameful and
must be opposed. I cannot support a budget that raises taxes and
never balances, nor can I support a deal that does nothing to
reduce our nation’s $17.3 trillion debt.”

Nick Gillespie
on the plan’s uselessness.

I wrote in the New York Times back in February about
the
importance of the libertarian strain for the GOP’s future.
Reason’s vast body of writings on GOP establishment
opposition to
libertarian-leaning “wacko birds.”