The failed grand bargain of 2011: Obama and Boehner's negotiation breakdown

Leadership Style of Boehner

John Boehner, the speaker of the House, is one of the most reputed men among the Gang of Six. Boehner has always raised his voice when matters of taxation were discussed in the Congress or the House. At the same time, he has adopted a leadership style that has set him apart from other politicians and has made him popular among the Republicans as well as the Democrats.

Boehner has always believed in politics of consensus and that is what defines his leadership approach. However, he was still unable to convince Obama when he tried to negotiate the "grand bargain" on the ever growing federal debt. Obama was also seen to accuse Boehner for not being able to pass a bill in his chamber, since it was rewritten so many times. In the middle of these accusations Boehner, the Speaker of the House, also left the floor two times.

His first legislation was announced in February, 2011 that concerned some tax reforms. After announcing this legislation, Boehner had to receive a great deal of criticism. Instead of reacting to this criticism, he asked his deputies to rewrite the bill. It is noteworthy that this is not the only time that Boehner exhibited such behavior. Throughout his tenure as Speaker of the House, he was not seen imposing any bill. Every time any member of the House had any issue with the legislation that he passed, he would ask his lieutenants to review the bill and come up with a revised one. Even though such an attitude did win him a place in the hearts of the Gang of Six, but because of his consensus-driver leadership, he did not prove to be a strong leader in front of Obama.

Leadership Approach of Eric Cantor

Cantor is the Majority Leader of the House, however many politicians and analysts do not approve of his leadership and have also claimed that he has failed as a leader in the past because of approach to lead politics. It should be noted here that he sided with the Speaker of the House, Boehner when the two politicians tried to negotiate a "grand bargain" in wake of the swelling federal debt.

According to the reports, in February of 2011, 92 Republicans that also included the Majority Leader of the House, Eric Cantor, sided with the rest of the Democrats so that they could prevent the approval of an amendment that was brought forth by Marsha Blackburn, a Congresswoman. He tried to defeat this amendment so that he could make sure that the GOP could live up to its promise of "$100 billion in cuts."

Many analysts believe that this was a total failure of Eric Cantor as a leader. The main reason behind this belief is that the amendment that was brought forth by Blackburn had the potential to decrease spending by 5.5%. This implies that just as the Republicans promised to pull down the budget to where it was in 2008, the amendment by the Congresswoman Blackburn would have made sure that it the aforementioned cuts were made across the board so that more could be saved for security matters (Erickson, 2013). Just as Obama did not like what Boehner had to say about the "grand bargain," he also turned down the plea that was presented by Eric Cantor. Even though Cantor was not really sure if they would be able to get this deal approved, he still decided to side with Boehner, but to no avail.

Leadership Approach of President Obama

Being the President of the United States, Barrack Obama needs to be very careful when it comes to adopting a leadership approach as this can directly and immensely affect his popularity among the general public as well as the Congressmen. So far, Obama has been doing this job reasonably. However, in this paper, we will be discussing his role and leadership approach pertaining to the "grand bargain" that was brought forth by the Speaker of the House Boehner and the Majority Leader Eric Canton.