American Majority Action spokesman Ron Meyer told Breitbart News late Tuesday that enough House Republicans have banded together in an effort to unseat House Speaker John Boehner from his position--they just need a leader to take up the mantle.

“At least 20 House Republican members have gotten together, discussed this and want to unseat Speaker Boehner--and are willing to do what it takes to do it,” Meyer said. “That’s more than enough to get the job done, but the one problem these guys face is they need a leader to coalesce behind.”
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The vote for Boehner’s re-election as Speaker happens on Thursday, two days after Boehner’s decision to support the Senate "fiscal cliff" deal Vice President Joe Biden cut with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on New Year’s Eve.

Middle-class workers will take a bigger hit to their income proportionately than those earning between $200,000 and $500,000 under the new fiscal cliff deal, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Earners in the latter group will pay an average 1.3 percent more – or an additional $2,711 – in taxes this year, while workers making between $30,000 and $200,000 will see their paychecks shrink by as much as 1.7 percent – or up to $1,784 – the D.C.-based think tank reported.

Overall, nearly 80 percent of households will pay more money to the federal government as a result of the fiscal cliff deal. Tax Policy Center, via The Daily Mail, via Gateway Pundit

“What happened?” he asked. “My paycheck just went down by an amount that I don’t feel comfortable with. I guarantee this decrease will hurt me more than the increase in income taxes will hurt those making over $400,000.” - democratic underground poster.

What divides Republicans today is a straightforward tactical question: Can you govern from one house of Congress? Should you even try? Can you shrink government, restrain spending, bring a modicum of fiscal sanity to the country when the President and a blocking Senate have no intention of doing so?

One faction feels committed to try. It wishes to carry out its small-government electoral promises and will cast no vote inconsistent with that philosophy. These are the House Republicans who voted no on the “fiscal cliff” deal because it raised taxes without touching spending. Indeed, it increased spending with its crazy-quilt crony-capitalist tax “credits” — for wind power and other indulgences.

They were willing to risk the fiscal cliff. Today they are willing to risk a breach of the debt ceiling and even a government shutdown rather than collaborate with Obama’s tax-and-spend agenda.

The other view is that you cannot govern from the House. The reason Ryan and John Boehner finally voted yes on the lousy fiscal-cliff deal is that by then there was nowhere else to go.

Republicans could not afford to bear the blame (however unfair) for a $4.5 trillion across-the-board tax hike and a Pentagon hollowed out by sequester.

The party establishment is coming around to the view that if you try to govern from one house — e.g., force spending cuts with cliffhanging brinkmanship — you lose. You not only don’t get the cuts. You get the blame for rattled markets and economic uncertainty. You get humiliated by having to cave in the end. And you get opinion polls ranking you below head lice and colonoscopies in popularity.

There is history here. The Gingrich Revolution ran aground when it tried to govern from Congress, losing badly to President Clinton over government shutdowns. Nor did the modern insurgents do any better in the 2011 debt-ceiling and 2012 fiscal-cliff showdowns with Obama.

Obama’s postelection arrogance and intransigence can put you in a fighting mood. I sympathize. But I’m tending toward the realist view: Don’t force the issue when you don’t have the power.

The debt-ceiling deadline is coming up. You can demand commensurate spending cuts, the usual, reasonable Republican offer. But you won’t get them. Obama will hold out. And, at the 11th hour, you will have to give in as you get universally blamed for market gyrations and threatened credit downgrades.

Duncan Black suggests that there’s still a macroeconomic case for targeting economic aid on people with lower incomes; e.g, food stamps yes, cuts in the capital gains tax no. Very much so! In fact, in a way the same argument I made for not making too much of high-income saving and low-income dissaving also makes the case for aid right now to the bottom half of the distribution.

Here’s how it goes: at any point in time, those with lower incomes include a high proportion of people doing temporarily badly. Many of those people will be “liquidity-constrained” — out of liquid assets, and unable to borrow except at high rates. These are people who will spend a large fraction of any aid, and therefore transfers to that group will have a much bigger multiplier effect than, say, tax cuts for the rich.

It’s even better, of course, to target aid on those we know are in temporary distress — which is why unemployment insurance is an especially effective stimulus.