Boehner Facing Tea-Party Pressure - WSJ.com

Boehner Facing Tea-Party Pressure - WSJ.com

By JANET HOOK

Home-state tea-party activists have access to House Speaker John Boehner that any lobbyist would envy. They meet twice a month with a top aide to the Ohio Republican, and their emails are answered quickly.

But that doesn't seem to be enough to turn them into loyalists.

ZUMAPRESS.com

House Speaker John Boehner during a forum on job creation held by House Republican leaders at the U.S. Capitol.

Ohio conservatives say they are preparing to call 1,000 of Mr. Boehner's donors to complain that he isn't doing enough to block a debt-limit increase. On a new Facebook page, "Tea Partiers Against Boehner,'' they air complaints. The national group Tea Party Patriots, saying that Republicans are "timidly passing mediocre spending reforms,'' has called for a rally at the Capitol.

The calls to make big spending cuts come as Mr. Boehner works under deadline pressure with Democratic lawmakers and the White House on a plan to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year to avoid a potential government shutdown after April 8.

Such negotiations tend to push lawmakers toward compromise. The tea-party activists want Mr. Boehner to stick to his guns on $61 billion in budget cuts that the House approved earlier this year. "You said you were going to cut X amount, and that's what we want to see happen,'' said Chris Littleton, co-founder of the Ohio Liberty Council, a coalition of tea-party groups. "Just take a stand. That's pretty cut and dried.''

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said the House speaker "believes an increase in the debt ceiling cannot and should not pass without spending cuts and reforms so that we can keep cutting spending."Mr. Steel said that Republicans will have to keep reminding their allies that the GOP's power in Washington remains limited. "Washington, D.C., is still controlled by Democrats, and congressional Republicans are the only thing standing between the American people and more 'stimulus' spending, more bailouts, and more big government takeovers," Mr. Steel said.

Many tea-party activists were already infuriated with the GOP when the House—including Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia—voted down a conservative-backed amendment for $20 billion more in cuts than were passed.

"We are extremely disappointed in Eric Cantor, but not surprised," said Mark Lloyd, chairman of the Virginia Tea Party Patriot Federation. "When you have the opportunity to cut, you cut."

Mr. Cantor and other GOP leaders are responding by promising they will deliver even further-reaching reductions in spending, including entitlement programs, when they draft a budget resolution for fiscal 2012, which is expected to be released in April. "We agree with the need to restore fiscal sanity which is why we will deliver even bigger cuts,'' said Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring.

John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron, has been interviewing tea-party activists. He found that Ohio tea-party members on balance view Mr. Boehner favorably, but opinion is more sour in the conservative western part of the state that includes his district.

Jim Lewis, a retired salesman, is vice president of a tea-party group in West Chester. He said he and other activists meet twice a month with Ryan Day, Mr. Boehner's district staff chief.

Mr. Lewis said that after one contentious meeting this month, activists became worried that Mr. Boehner wasn't doing enough to block an increase in the federal debt limit, even though Mr. Day said Republicans would insist that any increase be accompanied by additional strict spending curbs.

The activists sent a letter from 10 local tea-party leaders expressing "extreme disappointment'' in Mr. Boehner's position. A recorded phone call will soon go to 1,000 of his campaign donors, asking them to demand that the speaker take a stronger stand on the debt limit, according to Dan Lillback a leader of the Ohio Liberty Council.