Boehner: 'There Isn't a Reason Why Any Member' Should Oppose Deal

John Boehner nev­er had any doubt that his last ma­jor act as speak­er—cut­ting a two-year budget deal with con­gres­sion­al lead­ers and the White House—would be a suc­cess.

“It’s a sol­id agree­ment,” he said Tues­day morn­ing at what was likely his last press con­fer­ence, “and there isn’t a reas­on why any mem­ber should vote against this.”

The deal, which still needs to be voted on, is the res­ult of weeks-long ne­go­ti­ations, dur­ing which Boehner took the lead. It would in­crease spend­ing caps by $80 mil­lion, raise the na­tion’s debt lim­it ahead of the Novem­ber 3 dead­line, and make long-term changes to the So­cial Se­cur­ity Dis­ab­il­ity In­sur­ance Pro­gram.

Boehner de­scribed a laun­dry list of perks for which the agree­ment provides: It pro­tects the eco­nomy, “brings more cer­tainty” to next year’s ap­pro­pri­ations pro­cess, re­duces the de­fi­cit, strengthens the U.S. mil­it­ary, and “pro­tects more Amer­ic­ans from Obama­care,” among oth­er be­ne­fits.

But even though those pro­vi­sions seem tail­or-made for the Re­pub­lic­an caucus, the most con­ser­vat­ive wing of the House, its Free­dom Caucus, isn’t so hot about the deal. Asked if he’s pre­pared for back­lash, Boehner said that when of­fi­cials come to a “bi­par­tis­an agree­ment in a town that’s not really known for bi­par­tis­an­ship … you’re gonna see bricks fly­ing.”

The deal could come to a vote Wed­nes­day, the day the House GOP is slated to vote for Boehner’s suc­cessor, Rep. Paul Ry­an. One of Boehner’s goals in nail­ing down the agree­ment was to makes things a little easi­er for Ry­an when he takes over as speak­er, as is ex­pec­ted.

“I didn’t want him to walk in­to a dirty barn full of you-know-what,” Boehner said. And he agreed with Ry­an’s cri­ti­cismthat the be­hind-closed-doors pro­cess lead­ers used to ham­mer out the agree­ment’s de­tails “stinks.”

“This is not the way to run a rail­road,” but he said the al­tern­at­ives would be worse. He said this deal will make next year “a whole lot smooth­er” for Con­gress to do its busi­ness.

Boehner, for his part, will likely be checked out on a golf course some­where when next year rolls around. His fel­low Re­pub­lic­ans gave him golf-re­lated gifts this week as go­ing-away presents, he said Tues­day, telling re­port­ers, “I like that I see light at the end of the tun­nel.”

In the last ques­tion of the morn­ing, Boehner was asked by a re­port­er what his best day at the job has been. The speak­er cited the reau­thor­iz­a­tion of a bill last week hav­ing to do with school vouch­ers in Wash­ing­ton, tear­ing up while talk­ing about the le­gis­la­tion. He ac­know­ledged how “I get pretty wound up” when dis­cuss­ing chil­dren’s edu­ca­tion.

As he left the lectern, pho­to­graph­ers began snap­ping away at a misty-eyed Boehner.

“Like they don’t have enough pic­tures of me,” he said, walk­ing out the door.