Shortly after, the House cancelled a meeting of the Rules Committee, making it unclear if the vote will be held. “I’ve got one vote and I’m a no,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said as he left a meeting with House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) leadership team.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
The Speaker of the House can't get his proposal through the rules committee. Who is on the House Rules Committee:
Republicans
Pete Sessions, Texas, Chairman (T)
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Vice Chair (FT)
Rob Bishop, Utah (T)
Tom Cole, Oklahoma
Rob Woodall, Georgia
Rich Nugent, Florida (T)
Daniel Webster, Florida (FT)
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida (T)
Michael C. Burgess, Texas(T)
Democrats
Louise Slaughter, New York, Ranking Member
James P. McGovern, Massachusetts
Alcee Hastings, Florida
Jared Polis, Colorado
(T) Indicates a member of the house Tea Party Caucus. (FT) Represents fellow travellers, representatives known to have strong Tea Party sympathies (i.e. be barking nuts).
Total Committee Member: 13, Total Tea Party Members: 7
What I suspect has happened is that Boehner cut a deal to retain his speakership: no more violating the Hastert rule and the Republicans on the rules committee will enforce this. Boehner can't bring anything to the floor that the Tea Party doesn't want, he can't get a rule. Unlike former speakers, he cannot remove the committee members, if he tries he will not last long enough for speaker to do so.
These are members that may well believe that US debt was contracted for "immoral" aims and should be repudiated. If Boehner no longer can control the flow of business to the house floor, then I don't see how we avoid default. I worry that we have literally come to a moment when the Tea Party will attempt to destroy American government. All options for dealing with that are bad.