Phil Gingrey swings to the ‘yes’ column on Boehner plan

A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, who has been a staunch opponent of the debt-ceiling proposal pitched by House Speaker John Boehner, just confirmed that the Marietta Republican has switched to the “yes” column – an important get for Boehner that could show itself in a vote later today.

Previously, the Boehner plan required a select House-Senate committee to propose a series of off-setting budget cuts before President Barack Obama could request a second increase in the debt-ceiling next year.

Gingrey was won over by the inclusion this morning of an additional requirement, mandating that Congress also send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget. Here’s his interview with Jamie Dupree of AM750 and 95.5FM Newstalk/WSB:

For those of you keeping score, that means six House Republicans from Georgia now support the Boehner plan. Two – Tom Graves of Ranger and Paul Broun of Athens – remain in opposition.

- By Jim Galloway, Political Insider
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198 comments Add your comment

Ghost Rider

July 29th, 2011
4:37 pm

Sandra:

“The average SAT score fro South Georgia!”

I believe you meant to say “the average SAT score from Atlanta”, didn’t you?

Smoke

July 29th, 2011
4:56 pm

OK Gingrey. How many bills have you sponsored or voted that have created net new jobs? None! You have voted for every thing Bush signed and we had hugh net losses, and against everything Obama signed that has created a modest net increase. What a record!

Last Man Laying Down

July 29th, 2011
5:16 pm

Did Dr. Phil (Gingrey) take the Hippocratic Oath or the Hypocritic oath? Or is he just a pragmatic and realistic observer of the reality of defaulting vs. principled harakiri?

festus

July 29th, 2011
5:20 pm

Thanks to the US Congress, I now understand Madame Defarge.

* Too Big to Fail *

July 29th, 2011
5:22 pm

`
What a bunch of Republican knuckleheads,
Herbert Hoover would be real proud of them.
.

GaBlue

July 29th, 2011
5:24 pm

How many jobs would “job creators” create IF “job creators” WOULD create (U.S.) jobs …. with their tax cuts (while that black man is still in the White House)????

Any ideas?

clem

July 29th, 2011
5:27 pm

big corps have created jobs some 2.4 million overseas, while cutting 2.7 here

Smoke

July 29th, 2011
5:27 pm

How many votes needed to pass PAYGO? 278! How many to pass a BBA? 5,000! How can the GOP be taken seriously when they can’t count?

John

July 29th, 2011
6:02 pm

Republicans are a joke…while they’re fighting about raising the debt-ceiling because of the deficit, they partially shut down the FAA which is adding $200 million to the deficit each week it’s shut down. Not to mention the jobs that are being lost as a result…didn’t Republicans run on a jobs platform? Was that platform to create jobs or eliminate jobs?

Cobbian

July 29th, 2011
6:04 pm

What needs to happen is that the debt ceiling needs to be increased. Todays spending is a result of votes in the past by the House and the Senate. They get to change the future, but they can’t change the past.

It is the duty of the House and the Senate to come together to create legislation together that will survive the potential of a presidential veto. All of that is how the constitution says our government should function. What Gignrey agreed to will not survive that gauntlet of passing the Senate and then surviving a presidential veto.

What we are seeing is the tyranny of the Tea Party.

kfire66@gmail.com

July 29th, 2011
6:23 pm

This stunt reminds me of the Clinton impeachment..only this time Republicans are impeaching veterans, active military, seniors, and investors….THAT’S THEIR BASE…THE GOP IS IMPEACHING IT’S OWN BASE…!!!!!!

The Centrist

July 29th, 2011
6:44 pm

The GOP House just passed a bill that is at least 67 votes short of becoming law, even in the House!

TSA on the way to second base

July 29th, 2011
6:54 pm

WOW, I CANT NOT BELIEVE SO MANY PEOPLE REALLY DONT KNOW WHATS GOING ON…LOL

blame the Tea Party, ha, yes lets blame a grass roots movement that want to restore constitutional government and bring fiscal responiblity to DC

Sure, just let those that have been in DC for decades run it all; they know better than us

LMM

July 29th, 2011
6:58 pm

It makes me quite upset that the Repubs pass a bill that does not cover all that is necessary. As someone who doesnot make 250K or more, as soon as I find a job, I am going to be so happy to pay taxes! GE, other companies, Big Oil – pay no taxes but they tax their employees. That does not sit well with me nor does the thought that the Rebub have that it is OK. If we want to add revenue to the country, close the tax loop holes, get the taxes owed to the US and fairly tax everyone in the US. Case closed. Also, just because the Repubs have passed this bill, S&P may still downgrade our credit rating. And who’s fault will that be????? Not President Obama’s for sure. I really hope the voting population is paying attention because it seems that the Repubs hat Obama so much and don’t want him to be re-elected, they are willing to do anything for their cause no matter how it affects this country as a whole.

Smoke

July 29th, 2011
6:59 pm

Did I just hear Boehner just say that he put tax revenues on the table? Gingrey must have given him some laughing gas.

WAW

July 29th, 2011
7:06 pm

Just in time for the evening news and with another little diddy for their pledged Sold My Soul To The Devil owners. Bull, nothing more, nothing less than smoke and mirrors. They have all signed a pledge and are owned servants, they are “the Help”. “One nation under God” Nope they didn’t pledge to God!

John

July 29th, 2011
7:07 pm

“WOW, I CANT NOT BELIEVE SO MANY PEOPLE REALLY DONT KNOW WHATS GOING ON…LOL

blame the Tea Party, ha, yes lets blame a grass roots movement that want to restore constitutional government and bring fiscal responiblity to DC”

Just how is not wanting to raise the debt ceiling restoring constitutional government when section 4 of the 14th amendment states…”The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” The Constitution clearly states we must pay our bills. Raising the debt ceiling has nothing to do with future spending…it’s to pay our current bills approved by Congress (both Democrats and Republicans) in the past.

Smoke

July 29th, 2011
7:07 pm

TSA. How can anyone blame the tea party when they haven’t done anything and didn’t even follow their own rules? Needing 287 votes but only got 220? A bill that was more than a page long? Passing a bill in less than 72-hours? No blame, just pity.

Smoke

July 29th, 2011
7:10 pm

Conservatives like Gingrey created 90% of the mess, but don’t even want to take 50% of the blame.

Smoke

July 29th, 2011
7:17 pm

A friend reminded me that just because Obama submits a budget to Congress, according to the GOP logic, that is not a plan.

Madashellandwonttakeitanymore

July 29th, 2011
7:21 pm

Has anybody pointed out it was the Republicans between 2001 and 2007 who ran up the deficit. Bill Clinton left office with a balanced budget. Now that Osama’s dead, we ought to be out of Afghanistan, and never should have been in Iraq. But the dumb people of Georgia vote Rich and Stay Poor. Wake up! The Republicans want to keep most of the populace barefoot and pregnant. The rich get richer, and the dumb people of Georgia are too stupid to realize they will always be poor.

B. Thenet

July 29th, 2011
7:22 pm

Well good thing they attached the Balanced Budget Amendment, I am sure they have the 67 votes needed in the Senate to push that through…..

What a self indulgent bunch this crop of GOPers are.

Buckhead Boy

July 29th, 2011
7:31 pm

“GOP logic.” Now there’s a great oxymoron.

John

July 29th, 2011
7:35 pm

Here’s what conservative Charles Krauthammer had to say today…

“Under our constitutional system, you cannot govern from one house alone. Today’s resurgent conservatism, with its fidelity to constitutionalism, should be particularly attuned to this constraint, imposed as it is by a system of deliberately separated — and mutually limiting — powers.

Given this reality, trying to force the issue — turn a blocking minority into a governing authority — is not just counter-constitutional in spirit but self-destructive in practice.”

Shabootyquiqui

July 29th, 2011
8:02 pm

Gingrey and the House Repubs (and by extension all the rest of us) are being sandbagged. The debt ceiling will get increased right away. But just watch, the balanced budget amendment, the future committee that would identify off-setting budget cuts – none of that’ll ever happen.

clem

July 29th, 2011
8:03 pm

right on charles krauthammer

clem

July 29th, 2011
8:18 pm

mcconnell is refusing a majority vote in senate on reid plan, which in effect is a filibuster….hope folks understand what a bunch of jerks these guys are

heck the house plan only passed 218-210….my guess is that all repubs instructed their stockbrokers to bet against usa as someone did today on a futures order

yuzeyurbrane

July 29th, 2011
8:40 pm

These Teapeople are not legislators but extortioners. They are trying to use extortionate tactics to get laws that would never pass either the normal legis. process or in a referendum with the American people, which 2012 could be. Accordingly, they should not be given the respect that a loyal opposition deserves. . . because they are not loyal but are traitors to our democracy. The most important thing we could do as a nation next year is to defeat their candidates and send this lunatic fringe back into their know-nothing caves.

John

July 29th, 2011
9:33 pm

Headline: Six out of eight US Congressmen in Georgia declare themselves to be “big government” Republicans and Democrats.

We Georgians should remember when they come up for reelection.

John Konop

July 29th, 2011
9:38 pm

We cannot fix the problem unless we are all honest about the math. The solution is simple when you look at the mess. Cut military and entailments and raise tax revenues by 4 %. I would rather see this done by a lower flat tax and eliminate write offs

….. CM: Bruce Bartlett is former Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary under the first George Bush and a policy adviser to Ronald Reagan. Bottom line, let’s look at the numbers right now. We’ve got a chart coming up. This shows the Bush tax cuts were responsible for increasing the debts. Now, we have about a $14 trillion debt right now, half came out since the turn of the century, and more than 40% of that has been from tax cuts.

BB: That’s right. When Bush took office, we had a debt of about $6 trillion. The projections from the CBO were that we were going to run a $6 trillion surplus. By this point, if we had done nothing, we would have paid off the dead debt, but we added about $3 trillion of tax cuts. We lost about $3 trillion of revenue because of the slower economy and added about $6 trillion of spending, largely due to two unfinished wars and a Medicare drug benefits and a lot of other things. So, instead of getting — paying off the debt–we ended up with about a $14 trillion debt.

CM: Some of these clowns, not all of them, running around saying Barack Obama is a Socialist, he drove up the national debt to $14 trillion and dance around in a circle and congratulate each other. That’s not true.

BB: No, i think the dirty secret is that Obama is a moderate conservative. If I were a liberal democrat, I probably would be upset.

CM: The point is a $1 trillion debt, and another poring (?) is from the prescription drug bill. The whole rest of that is from a lousy economy under Bush and these two wars he came up with.

BB: That’s right. The Republicans keep saying the tax cuts are the key to prosperity. The 2000s are evidence that that is not true. We had booming economies in the 1980s and ’90s. If we went back to those taxes, we would be better off.

CM: What is the argument against the kind of tax policy– let’s just say it again. It seems like a heck of a great economy with the tax rate of about 39.6, as opposed to 35?……..

td

July 29th, 2011
9:48 pm

GaBlue

July 29th, 2011
5:24 pm
How many jobs would “job creators” create IF “job creators” WOULD create (U.S.) jobs …. with their tax cuts (while that black man is still in the White House)????

Any ideas?

Well if you really believe this to be true, then why are you not starting a drive to ask Obama to do the most patriotic act in his life and make the extreme sacrifice for the country he loves and resign from office so that more American people can go back to work?

Martin Williams

July 29th, 2011
10:16 pm

Thanks GOP. I see unemployment in this country around 15% – 16% by 2014. If people think things are bad now, wait two to three years from now, more people will be in soup lines like 1945. This has NOTHING to do with our current president. America went to two WARs and for the past ten years continue to give tax breaks to some of us. The tax cuts are actually creating millions of overseas and not here. Now we have a group serious idiots Tea Party people trying to blame current administration. Where was the Tea Party when president Bush took us to war with a tax cut for some of us……..WOW.

Marlboro Man

July 29th, 2011
11:12 pm

The lick each other for 2 days and they narrowly pass a bill that is tabled, dead. Now legislation that never becomes law is failed legislation. And they are proud of failure.

clem

July 29th, 2011
11:31 pm

john, broun is a national laughingstock and graves getting there too

td

July 29th, 2011
11:42 pm

clem

July 29th, 2011
11:31 pm

A national laughingstock in whose circles? Surely not in the majority of the Republican held districts (which btw is the majority of the country). If you are talking about in the liberals eyes then I am sure he does not care and neither does his constituents.

Bluto

July 29th, 2011
11:42 pm

Republicans = Devil Spawn

td

July 29th, 2011
11:44 pm

clem

July 29th, 2011
11:31 pm
john, broun is a national laughingstock and graves getting there too

Lets compare Broun to Pelosi, Frank, Reid? How about in this state and let us compare him to Hank Johnson. Not laughing so hard now are you?

td

July 29th, 2011
11:46 pm

Marlboro Man

July 29th, 2011
11:12 pm

Where is the Senates bill? Obama’s bill? At least the house has passed 2 bills and attempted to “save” the country. What have the Dems done so far?

td

July 29th, 2011
11:51 pm

John Konop

July 29th, 2011
9:38 pm

How about freezing the rate of growth of all programs for 6 years and cutting every Federal agency by 1% every year for the next 6 years? I think Rand Paul said this would balance the budget. Surely, every agency can find 1% savings in their departments without effecting benefits.

John

July 30th, 2011
12:20 am

“Where is the Senates bill? Obama’s bill? At least the house has passed 2 bills and attempted to “save” the country. What have the Dems done so far?”

They were working on their bills in a bipartisan fashion until the Republican walked away. They walked away from the gang of six, they walked away from negotiations led by Biden, then Boehner walked out of the last one with Obama.

...

July 30th, 2011
4:11 am

democrats unite and give obama your money.He knows what to do with it!

Smoke

July 30th, 2011
5:57 am

“The state of Georgia is near the bottom among states for SAT scores and graduation rates.” — Chip Rogers. City of Atlanta may have cheated at the elementary or middle school level, but they hang in there. Many southern conservatives drop out of school and rest still have lousy SAT scores.

Smoke

July 30th, 2011
6:11 am

td. Our total discretionary, and mediaid spending, plus including Bush Wars costs is $2 trillion. So, your 1% plan would reduce the deficit by $12 billion over six years. Back to the drawing board.

Smoke

July 30th, 2011
6:15 am

conservatives gave their money and China loaned funds to Boehner, Ryan, and Bush, and they have no clue what they did with it!

Smoke

July 30th, 2011
6:18 am

OK, td, other than the silly “Guam” statement, what has Johnson said that can even close to comparing the stupidity of the Georgia GOP delegation voting for the BBA?

Atlman

July 30th, 2011
6:57 am

This blog confirms the ignorance and down right stupidity of democrat voters… Why do democrats and many Republicans (looking at you Saxby) hate fiscal responsibility? Actions speak much louder than words. Austerity is going to take place sooner or later. We can do it by choice now or force later. 2012 can’t get here soon enough.

Ghost Rider

July 30th, 2011
8:05 am

Martin Williams:

You really bought into the Democrats fantasy world, didn’t you? God bless you, child! One day you will see the truth, whether you want to or not.

JW

July 30th, 2011
8:06 am

At least most of you people don’t have Graves representing you. Apparently he has no earthly clue as to what is even happening in Washington. Just needed a guaranteed paycheck, generous retirement benefits and free lifetime medical, I guess.

clem

July 30th, 2011
8:46 am

td, in this state? if it weren’t for al, miss, & sc we’d be national laughingstock….

Ray

July 30th, 2011
9:14 am

JW – absolutely, Graves is the poster boy for rightwing ego, greed, and incompetence.

Great write up in the North Georgia News explaining how Graves election to the House has been devastating to his district…shame, good folks up there in Union County.