No Dealing On The Debt Ceiling, Part 22

Turns out the GOP plan to throw a temper tantrum and leave the debt ceiling talks with Vice-President Biden and the Democrats was something they had been planning for "weeks".

GOP aides and lawmakers said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) decision to exit debt talks led by Vice President Biden was inevitable.

The timing of Cantor’s exit from the talks has been discussed for weeks, and senior House Republicans cast it as a natural progression for the negotiations.

“There have been discussions about when these talks need to end and when the Speaker and the president need to get in the game,” one GOP aide explained.

Democrats suggested Cantor’s decision was meant to undermine House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) by forcing him to decide whether the elimination of any tax breaks would be included in a final deal to raise the debt ceiling and reduce annual deficits.


But Republicans pushed back hard at that narrative, describing a coordinated effort that was weeks in the making.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said Cantor consulted Boehner Thursday morning before announcing his decision to leave the talks, which puts those negotiations in limbo.

To recap, Republicans are denying they are hanging Orange Julius out to dry with the novel argument that they were never negotiating in good faith in the first place and that they are in fact nothing more than a room full of immature, petulant children.  They are very happy with blowing up the economy so they can blame Obama.

Sure, that's a much better argument.  But hey, for once it's the truth.

But with folks like GOP Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina vowing that any Republican who votes for a debt limit increase will be "gone" in 2012, it's hard to imagine there's any Republican appetite to prevent a double-dip recession and a bond-market meltdown.  Once again Republicans refuse to cut any subsidies and are insisting on permanent tax cuts for the rich as part of any debt ceiling deal, and it's becoming pretty clear that there was never any deal in the first place.

They'll just blame Obama, while the rest of the country goes straight back into the crapper.  If they can't rule America they way they want to, there will be no America to rule, I guess.

Meanwhile President Obama, Harry Reid, and Mitch McConnell will supposedly go to the negotiating table Monday.

Of course conservatives like Ross Douthat think all of this is Obama's fault for bringing up taxes anyway, because the President is either the worst negotiator ever or he's just stringing along progressives to the chopping block. Besides, all he has to do is let the Bush Tax Cuts expire and he "wins".

Oh and speaking of our debt crisis, all Congress has to do in order to balance the budget is A) let the Bush tax cuts expire and B) let the Medicare "doc fix" expire.  We'd have a balanced budget by 2016.  It really is that easy.