No Dealing On The Debt Ceiling, Part 25

Ezra Klein notes the Republicans have now scrapped their own budget position in March as untenable in July.

By the end of the debt-ceiling negotiations, the Obama administration had agreed to a deal that would reduce the deficit by $2.4 trillion, with $2 trillion of the total coming from spending cuts and $400 billion coming from tax increases. Taxes, in other words, would be about 17 percent of the final deal. Republicans rejected it. But as little as four months ago, it was the Republican ideal.

Mike Konczal points us to “Spend Less, Owe Less, Grow the Economy,” the March 2011 report released by the Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee. The report, which tried to argue that fiscal austerity would lead to short-term growth, was as methodologically unsound, and quickly forgotten. But for our purposes, that’s irrelevant. What is relevant is the report’s golden ratio: “successful fiscal consolidations averaged 85% spending cuts and 15% revenue increases, while unsuccessful fiscal consolidations averaged 47% spending cuts and 53% revenue increases,” it concluded. There was even a graph:

And the Republicans stormed out and are now saying any revenue increases are unaccpetable, and they will get 100% of what they want (zero revenue increases and 100% spending cuts) or the economy will be destroyed.

But they're "serious centrists", they are.  And Obama is a "dick" for daring to point this out.

[UPDATE] Josh Marshall explores why despite poll after poll showing the public takes the Democrats' side on both ending the Bush tax cuts and overwhelmingly back the Dems on leaving Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security alone, inside Washington the Dems are fighting a losing battle behind closed doors.