Why Repbulicans Need to Vote for John Boehner's Bill to Raise the Debt Ceiling

The Republicans in the House of Representatives need to vote for Boehner's bill because it is the best policy option available to conservatives in a situation where they do not control the White House or the Senate.  Failure to raise the debt ceiling will guarantee a credit downgrade, which will cause interest rates to climb, harming an already bad economy.  Additionally, the government will be unable to meet its obligations and will be unable to do things like pay the military.  Here’s a quick video explanation:

If the Boehner bill dies in the House, the Republicans will have to accept a far worse deal than the Boehner plan.  Harry Reid will pass a bill out of the Senate and send it to the House.  The House will then have two choices.  1. Pass Reid's bill, which is a less favorable product and thus will dispirit the base of the party. 2. Refuse Reid's bill, in which case they will get full blame for the ratings downgrade and an economically devestating partial government shutdown.  Moderate swing voters will assume the conservative/tea party portion of the party is irresponsible and unreasonable, and that the party as a whole is incapable of handling the economy. These voters will implicitly think that GOP is still the party of George W. Bush, who is still a toxic political figure. 

On the other hand, if the Boehner bill passes, it will put pressure on Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid to make only minimal changes to the House product, because if he changes it too radically, then the Democrats will receive blame for not accomplishing the only deal that could be done.  That the Boehner bill passed narrowly might actually discourage Reid from aggressively altering the House product, because voters would rightly hold the Democratic controlled Senate responsible for causing the partial shutdown and credit downgrade for no good reason. Harry Reid may still make minor changes to the Boehner bill that Republicans may have to accept, such as closing some tax loopholes on higher income taxpayers and corporations. However, this bill will undoubtedly be better than Harry Reid's preferred bill. 

Republicans and conservatives need to be mature enough to understand that a party only gets to have policy made “its way” when it controls the presidency and both chambers of congress. The GOP has a good chance of reaching that goal in 2012 by defeating Pres. Obama and taking back the Senate.  However, that time has not yet come.  The intelligent course of action for conservatives is to raise the debt ceiling while obtaining the best deal possible and then spend the next year convincing the voters to give them full control of the legislative and executive branches for the purposes of improving the economy, balancing the budget, and paying off the national debt