If John Boehner steps down, could Congress actually get something done?

Is House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) stepping down in 2014?

Huffington Post reporter Jon Ward certainly thinks so. He talked to current and former Boehner aides who all say they think he will retire after the next midterm elections, despite the fact that he said otherwise two months ago.

"It's probably not up to him," an unnamed GOP operative tells the Huffington Post. "The natural assumption is that he leaves. It's the overwhelming, working assumption as people are making strategy going into 2015 and 2016."

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Boehner hasn't exactly had the easiest time of it, suffering one humiliating setback after the next at the hands of his own caucus. As New York's Jonathan Chait writes, a "small minority of the most extreme Republicans in the House have managed to keep Boehner on a leash by threatening to depose him as speaker if he displeases them."

That tension came to a head when anti-tax conservatives rejected Boehner's "Plan B" budget proposal during the fiscal cliff debate in late 2012, which would have raised taxes only on millionaires. Then, in January, he nearly lost his bid for a second term as speaker when 12 Republicans abstained from voting or voted for someone else. And in June, his conservative colleagues threw him under the bus again, voting against a five-year farm bill that he had publicly backed himself.

Unyielding pressure from Tea Party Republicans has left Boehner presiding over a Congress that has passed fewer bills than any other since such information began being tracked in 1947. Indeed, the few big bills that have passed — such as aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy — came when Boehner broke the so-called Hastert rule, an informal rule that forbids a vote on a bill unless it has the support of "the majority of the majority" in the House.

"Until now, Boehner's dream of establishing a legacy for himself, either by striking a 'grand bargain' to reduce the deficit or…passing comprehensive immigration reform, has been thwarted by the more mundane desire simply to hold on to his job," writes Joshua Green at Bloomberg Businessweek. If he is retiring, Green speculates "it's possible that a whole lot more could happen."

Chait paints a dream scenario for Democrats if Boehner feels no pressure to appease conservative Republicans:

Ezra Klein of The Washington Post, however, doesn't think Boehner will suddenly compromise on the budget, since "the two sides really, honestly, seriously disagree about what constitutes a good deal, and they're still bitter over the failures of past deals."

Instead, he argues, Boehner might establish his legacy by lifting the Hastert rule, and making progress on an overhaul of the country's immigration system passed by the Senate earlier this year:

However, The Atlantic Wire's Philip Bump isn't so sure that Boehner will have a change of heart on that issue either.

"Despite his rhetoric on the stump, John Boehner is a career politician," he writes. "And career politicians don't suddenly start going sideways."