House Minority Leader John Boehner says the country needs a 'fresh start.' Boehner: Fire Geithner and Summers

CLEVELAND — The rollout of John Boehner’s campaign for speaker of the House went public Tuesday morning here in his home state, as he outlined an economic agenda that combined old GOP economic ideas with a few new ones and called for the firing of President Barack Obama’s economic team.

The highlight of the speech, at the gothic City Club here: Boehner wants Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and economic adviser Larry Summers ousted. Speaking to a handful of reporters afterward, Boehner said the pair “see the handwriting on the wall” after a number of other advisers departed.


The other agenda ideas were hardly novel. Boehner, the House minority leader, called on the Obama administration once again to extend Bush-era tax cuts and freeze federal spending at 2008 levels.

But in the wide-ranging speech Tuesday, Boehner (R-Ohio) outlined several other major measures that he thinks would work toward righting the economy: He wants Obama to veto bills that he believes would hike taxes and eliminate a controversial portion of the health care overhaul law. He also backed a 20 percent tax cut for small businesses.

Democrats across the board reacted swiftly to the Boehner speech, a clear sign that the majority party is paying much closer attention to the minority leader.

“After months of promising a look at his party’s agenda for their plans for America ... he made what was billed this morning as a major economic address,” Vice President Joe Biden said, sarcastically, at an event on Tuesday. “His chief proposal was that the president should fire his economic team — very constructive advice, and we thank the leader for that.”

Boehner touched on a number of other issues in a question-and-answer session with a friendly audience in Cleveland: He touched on a number of other issues in a question-and-answer session with a friendly audience: He questioned what should be investigated about opposition to the mosque, said he is “hopeful” about the debt commission after talks with its co-chairs and nodded in agreement when an audience member surmised that Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan would be chairman of the Budget Committee. He questioned man’s involvement in global warming and reiterated support for wind and solar energy.

The 8 a.m. speech here was billed by some as the beginning of a major rollout of the Republican Party’s economic agenda — and also a preview of how Boehner would run the House if he becomes speaker.

It came on day 16 of Boehner’s summer bus tour visiting Republican challengers and incumbents, filling campaign coffers and introducing himself to voters on a national level.

A handful of national reporters were on hand Tuesday morning in this city’s downtown neighborhood as Boehner singled out Geithner and Summers as having promulgated “19 months of government-as-community organizer.”

“It hasn’t worked,” Boehner said in the speech. “Our fresh start needs to begin now”

Democrats were clearly ready for Boehner's speech Tuesday — so much so that White House and congressional officials held conference calls in advance of the remarks on Monday to blast Boehner and warn that he wanted to return to Bush-era economic policies.

"It's an effort to obscure the lack of a Republican stand," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.) said after Boehner’s speech, adding that Republicans have been "standing in the doorway" of economic progress and acting as "a blockade."

Also likely to irk Democrats was Boehner’s call for the president to veto bills such as card-check legislation — which would make it easier for employees to unionize — and an energy bill, which Democrats believe would bring the country closer to eliminating harmful pollutants and roll back global warming.

“Democratic leaders refuse to rule out the possibility of forcing these job-killing bills through in a lame-duck session, after the election, after the voters have had their say,” Boehner said. “Their failure to level with the American people only compounds the ongoing economic uncertainty.”

The minority leader offered some specifics, which might help brush back claims that the GOP is a party of no ideas. He called on nondefense discretionary spending to go back to 2008 levels, claiming that if spending is reduced, it would save taxpayers more than $340 billion.

Boehner is also calling for elimination of the so-called 1099 mandate, which would require some employers to disclose anything they buy in excess of $600.

“What is the point of making employers and entrepreneurs spend $17 billion to send all this paperwork to Washington, where it’s going to cost about $10 billion to log it in and file it away?” Boehner plans to say. “Talk about overhead.”

The speech also continues a trend of unveiling parts of Boehner’s personal life as he tries to introduce himself to a larger American audience in his audition for speaker of the House. Boehner discusssed mopping his father’s bar in Cincinnati and watching him “agonize” over economic decisions.

He also spoke of watching leaders in both parties “look at the big issues, the tough issues — and then look away” — a nod at Boehner’s attempt to separate himself from even his own party.

“It’s time to put grown-ups in charge,” Boehner said. “It’s time for people willing to accept responsibility. It’s time to do what we say we’re going to do. These are the values I learned growing up with 11 brothers and sisters, and these are the values I have passed on to my daughters. I’ve also told my girls how I was raised to never accept the next best thing for myself or my country.”

Boehner is trying to strike a tone of desperation about the deficit — saying he’s not afraid to say that America has no money left. He invokes both John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, echoing a good government mantra that has few laws and low taxes.

Boehner also put his finger on political scale, highlighting some of the party’s lawmakers. He mentioned several Republicans by name — Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, who is running the GOP’s agenda project and Indiana’s Gov. Mitch Daniels, a favorite of many conservatives nationwide. He also invoked former congressman and vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp.

He also boosted Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for identifying $1.3 trillion in cuts. But doesn’t mention Ryan's controversial separate Roadmap for America's Future, including a reworking of Social Security and vouchers for Medicare.

He talked about Rep. Geoff Davis’s (R-Ky.) plan to require Congress to approve any executive branch expenditure over $100 million, and a plan by the Ways and Means Committee's ranking Republican, Dave Camp (Mich.), to give small businesses with fewer than 500 employees a tax cut equal to 20 percent of their income.

Boehner again calls for the ratification of free trade proposal put forth with House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

But the specifics are going to cause as much uproar as having no plan at all. Republicans have spent the better part of the last year saying that the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats have failed at creating jobs and stabilizing the economy. But Democrats have consistently characterized the Republican plan as aiming to privatize Social Security and destabilize Medicare.

Democrats pounced on Boehner’s message before it was even delivered, underscoring just how seriously the party believes it may lose the House in November. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), also a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, and Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern held a conference call with reporters, predicting that Boehner will look to privatize Social Security and continue Bush-era policies.

The DNC also released an advertisement Monday evening, saying that Boehner “invented” the inside Washington game.

The challenge is stiff for Boehner on other fronts, too. He’s the consummate inside-the-Beltway politician, who’s chided by Republicans and Democrats alike for his love of wine, smoking cigarettes and playing golf. Democrats have been filling their campaign coffers by merely using the specter of a Boehner speakership — DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse said Monday that returning Republicans to power would be a rewind to the “culture of corruption.” To that end, Boehner’s staff invited national political reporters — namely, The New York Times, the Washington Post and POLITICO — to sit down with the Ohio Republican after the speech here.

Part of the idea is to establish Boehner as a leader who is hefty on policy, after a year of political gamesmanship that included him taking to the floor and reading an energy bill and declaring “hell no” to the Democrats’ health care plan.

Some have seen speeches like this as presumptive — measuring the drapes of the speaker’s office. Wasserman Schultz said Boehner wasn’t measuring the drapes of the office but, rather, “smoking the drapes” if he thinks the American people want GOP policies re-enacted. She also accused Boehner of trying to reassemble the K Street Project, a mid-1990s plan to pressure lobby shops to hire Republicans after they took the majority.

Redfern added that “George Bush had no better soldier than John Boehner over the course of those eight years.”