I am kicking myself that I didn’t see this coming. Of course, it might not work either, so I can’t be blamed for not seeing the outlines of the capitulation. Here’s what I knew. I knew that Boehner wants to raise the debt limit but he can’t get enough votes from his own party to accomplish this. I knew that he’d have to go to the Democrats for votes, and that he might discover that he needed more Democratic votes than Republican ones. His problem? Passing a Democrat-majority bill would probably cost him his Speakership.
So, Mitch McConnell came to the rescue by openly signaling the Republicans’ willingness to capitulate. It’s a pretty ingenious plan. The Republicans will give away their ability to hold the economy hostage in exchange for the right to bitch about the debt limit two more times before election day 2012. The Tea Partiers are furious.
The president offered them a sweet deal and they turned it down and then said, “Mr. President, why don’t you take this gun we’ve been holding to the economy’s head. We’re too irresponsible to keep it.”
It works out great for the GOP. They don’t have to break any promises about raising taxes. They can continue to grouse about the deficit. They can vote against lifting the debt limit three times without it actually preventing the debt limit from going up. It’s the perfect cop-out.
And, if it passes, it will pass the exact way I predicted: with mostly Democratic votes.
But I don’t know if it will pass. The House Republicans haven’t signed off on the plan, and the president wants the debt limit off his plate, not the subject of constant debate between now and his reelection day.
