This tea party tantrum misses the forest for the trees. They need to stop acting like the only leverage that exists is here at this debt limit increase.
The "debt crisis" will still be there next week no matter what gets through. There is time for and desperate need for genuine reform.
What we got: Taxes are off the table. More than a dollar offset for every dollar in new debt. A BBA vote and, now, passage requirement for more debt. It's a first step.
As I said in another thread stabbing Boehner, West, Pence, Ryan and others in the back is not going to make Democrats cave. Democrats are insane. They're happy to fan the flames of discord within the GOP. They couldn't have asked for a better result than the tantrum this week!
"Real" cuts were never ever on the table in this debate. That's a debate to have and *win* at the ballot box in 2012. Well, it is if the tantrum types don't sink the GOP this weekend. It'll take a generation or more to repair the damage, if we survive that long. We'll have Democrat rule and nothing else.
“What we got: Taxes are off the table.”
We did? Where? You think the Boehner deal get’s taxes off the table? Like those 6 Democrats on the deficit reduction committee in the Boehner deal are not going to demand tax increases? Please, that is just naive..
Mack and Rubio are proposing a 1% true reduction each year for 8 years that would bring us to a debt free budget. That’s a little less then a generation.