Assuming John Boehner's sincerity in his repeated avowals that he'll never allow the U.S. government to default--which would otherwise cause, among other known knowns, the final destruction of his party--then he'll have, it seems, no choice but to open the floor to a clean debt-ceiling vote.
For astonishingly it further seems he hasn't the GOP votes for even the dirtiest debt-ceiling bill ever--merely the latest one under "consideration," the one that slams the brakes on Obamacare, forces Keystone's construction, guts consumer protection, changes tort law, pollutes the air and converts public lands to corporate oil playgrounds. In short, the one--and let's just characterize this as what it is--that fascistically nullifies the last national elections.
No, all that's too moderate, say some House hardliners, who object that it lacks "specific spending cuts" and fails "to tackle entitlement reform," according to The Hill. "The problem for me is it doesn't address the debt," says, for example, Rep. Tom Rooney of Florida. "How can I possibly justify that?"
Don't bother. There's no compelling answer to willful, entrenched ignorance. An aggressive aversion to reason is simply that; and if it's aggressive enough, it's simply unalterable.
And then there are hardliners--and this is even more astonishing--who seem convinced that President Obama is just joking, that he's staking his entire presidency on an evanescent bluff, that at some magical moment he'll fling his palms from his eyes and yell Peek-a-boo, let's talk!
Here's Idaho's Rep. Mike Simpson: "When Obama says he's not going to negotiate on the debt ceiling, that's just baloney. Ultimately, he will."
Ultimately, he can't--precisely because of Simpson & Co.'s insistence that he will.
The upshot of House Republicans' assorted Disabling Acts is that ultimately Speaker Boehner will have to loop back to his primal vows that he'll never permit default. Which is to say, at some point he'll be forced to helplessly throw up his arms and open a "clean" vote to the full House.
I just can't see any alternative, because Boehner's own caucus isn't allowing one--his very own authoritarian anarchists are forcing his hand.