Debt Ceiling Deal - How Things Just Got Worse
All over but the crying on the debt ceiling and government shutdown showdown, and there are two prevaling conventional wisdoms, both of which are wrong:
1. The Republicans and Tea Party in particular "lost" because they picked a fight they couldn't win from the start, and they have done damage to their "brand." This is the MSM view.
2. At least the Tea Party did something. The Republican Party has utterly failed to stop the march toward socialism over the past 50 years in this country and the Tea Party is at least trying to stop it. Brit Hume proposed this today.
No one will remember this fight when it matters, or where it matters. No politician will lose their seat over this. The Tea Party candidates are safe in their dark red districts, and whomever the Rs nominate will not come from that wing of the party anyway. George W. Bush didn't suffer in 2000 from Newt Gingrich's similar antics.
It is also not correct to say that this exercise didn't do damage - it certainly did - to the prospect of actual controls on spending. Obama now has virtually no incentive to negotiate a budget deal, because a second shutdown is not realistic. The Tea Party tactics ensured two things: (1) we will keep spending in the near term; and (2) we will keep spending until we run out of money.
