Literally hours after John Boehner walked out on negotiations to raise the nation's debt limit, the New York Times editorial board laid into both the Speaker and his party. The title of today's editorial says it all: "The Party that Can't Say Yes."
For days, the White House has infuriated its Democratic allies in Congress by offering House Republicans more and more in exchange for a deal to raise the debt ceiling and prevent default. But it was never enough, and, on Friday evening, it became clear that it may never be enough. Speaker John Boehner again walked away from the “grand bargain” he had been negotiating with President Obama, leaving the country teetering on the brink of another economic collapse.
At the White House podium a few minutes later, the president radiated a righteous fury he rarely displays in public, finally placing the blame for this wholly unnecessary crisis squarely where it belongs: on Republicans who will do anything to upend his presidency and dismantle every social program they can find. emphasis mine
The NYT thinks Obama was offering way too much to Boehner, pointing out his proposed trillion-dollar cuts went further than the "Gang of Six" plan and that it raises the eligibility age for Medicare. The proposed $1.2 trillion in increased revenue would take several months to kick in because of the time it takes to revise the tax code. In the end, however, Boehner picked up his toys and went home over Obama's proposal to close $400 billion in tax loopholes.
Quite rightly, the NYT finds Boehner's beef to be rather picayune.
So, on the eve of economic calamity, the Republicans killed an overly generous deal largely over a paltry $400 billion in deductions. Mr. Obama was willing to take considerable heat from his liberal critics over the deal, and the Republicans were not willing to do a thing to anger their Tea Party base. As the president forcefully said, there is no evidence that House Republicans are capable of making those tough decisions.
Clearly, the mainstream media realizes what we've known for some time--it's the Repubs' fault we don't have a debt ceiling deal yet. Remember, this comes only two days after WaPo's Matt Miller called "cut, cap and balance" evidence that the Repubs don't understand the economics of running government (diaried here). Which means the narrative is in our favor--a fact that can only help us with the low-information voters.
Mitch McConnell himself said that if there's a default, not only will the Repubs get blamed, but it may hand Obama the 2012 election on a platter. He's looking more and more like a prophet by the minute.