No blink, says he who could be Speaker. Boehner last night, in response to Robert Gibbs and “compromise” post-Face the Nation “compromise” buzz:

Raising taxes on any American, and especially small businesses, in a struggling economy is the exact wrong thing to do, a position shared by not only by my Republican colleagues, and several of my Democratic colleagues, but by a vast number of economists.
If the president is serious about job creation, there’s a clear way forward, and that’s for us to come together and pass legislation immediately that cuts spending to 2008 levels for the next year and stops all of the coming tax hikes by freezing all current tax rates for the next two years. Anything short of that may selfishly check a political box for the president, but it fails the American people.
Instead of resorting to tired old class warfare rhetoric, pitting one working American against another, the president and the Democratic leadership should start working with us this week to ensure a fair and open debate to pass legislation to cut spending and freeze tax rates without any further delay.”

Kevin Hassett today, in his Bloomberg column, praises the president’s Public Enemy #1 for “new ideas.” He writes:

In the very speech that Obama mocked — Boehner’s Aug. 24 address in Cleveland — Boehner outlined a five-point plan to restore the American economy.
First, he proposed extending George W. Bush’s tax cuts for all, not just for those making less than $250,000 per year, as Obama prefers. Nothing new there.
But since then, Boehner has indicated a willingness to compromise by extending the tax cuts for two years and then, presumably, debating the issue again under less-dire economic circumstances.
Boehner’s small shift brought him within range of the view of Obama’s former budget director, Peter Orszag, who says the tax cuts in full should be continued for two years, then permitted to expire. Boehner, not surprisingly, hasn’t committed to the second part, but it’s significant to see him and Orszag agree that higher taxes now would harm an already weak economy.
Reasonable Republican
Fighting to extend the tax cuts for only two years is a big concession for a Republican, a departure from the tax-cuts-at- all-cost attitude of the past. Boehner took his reasonableness to a new level yesterday by declaring he would vote for the more limited tax-cut extension if that is the only option that could get enacted.
Second, Boehner highlighted the damaging effect that economic uncertainty is having, and he called on Obama to veto any legislation a lame-duck Congress might produce on union organizing, limits to industrial emissions or any other topic that would harm businesses.
Boehner grasps that reducing policy uncertainty is an overriding challenge for lawmakers. It isn’t just that firms worry Obama might enact policies that will harm them; they are also hamstrung by all of the policies that seem to be up for grabs every year because of budget tricks. Perhaps Boehner would seek to end the legislative patching and extending that has made business planning more and more difficult over the past decade.

Kevin sums up: “Taken as a whole, Boehner’s plan represents a major departure from the compassionate conservatism spend-a-thon under Bush and former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Gone is the Republican Party that seeks to buy off citizens with juicy benefits and pork. Good riddance.

“Boehner could probably say nothing between now and the Nov. 2 election and still become the next House speaker in a Republican rout. The fact that he’s proposing anything at all should win him admiration, at least enough to offset a president’s scorn.”