John Boehner can't make up his mind about how to stop the sequester

Here's House Speaker John Boehner yesterday, saying that unless President Obama proposes a sequester replacement that passes the Democratic Senate, we're going to be "stuck" with the sequester:

''Remember, this is the president's idea. He insisted on this,'' the speaker says. ''And until he puts forward a plan to replace the sequester and his Senate Democratic colleagues pass it, we're going to be stuck with it.''

Given the GOP's power to block legislation (including the plan Senate Democrats have already proposed) through the filibuster, this is obviously a ridiculous position for Boehner to take, but the funny thing is that it's not his only ridiculous position on the sequester. As Greg Sargent notes, Boehner also said yesterday that the sequester won't get replaced until Democrats agree to support a balanced budget within 10 years:

'I'll tell you the same thing I told my Republican colleagues at our retreat,' Boehner said. 'The sequester will be in effect until there are cuts and reforms that put us on a path to balance the budget in the next 10 years.'

Nobody, not even House Republicans, has put forward a plan that would balance the budget in 10 years. They say their budget plan will accomplish that goal, but thus far, they've produced nothing to back up their claim. And when they do, it will be a draconian budget that will make Paul Ryan's 2011 budget look like something that Paul Krugman could have written.

I'm not sure which position is more ridiculous, that Boehner won't agree to a sequester replacement that doesn't pass the Senate first or that any sequester replacement must balance the budget in 2023. Whichever it is, however, the most ridiculous thing of all is that even though he claims to oppose the sequester, he still can't make up his mind about how to get rid of it.

If Boehner really wanted to get rid of the sequester, he'd get rid of it. And until he does get rid of it, he can't credibly claim that he opposes it'especially since he said he got 98 percent of what he wanted when it was first signed into law.