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President Obama's decision to negotiate on the debt ceiling last time around invited tea partiers like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to try again.

(Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Great news: Congress will not deliberately wreck the American economy after all. At least for now.

But let’s remember what the conservative faction of the Republican Party did during this crisis. After losing the fight against the Affordable Care Act fair and square, tea partiers threatened to sabotage the economy to gain political leverage. They put a knife to the nation’s throat.

It didn’t work because President Obama stood his ground, and because level-headed Republicans finally pushed back against the extremists. This was a stinging defeat for the tea party, which is supported by an ever-shrinking segment of the American public.

A few takeaways: One is that Obama blew it in 2011 when he caved in to this same extortionist tactic and agreed to the deep and irrational spending cuts imposed through sequestration. That convinced bomb-throwers like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that he would fold again. Obama’s weakness in 2011 invited this hostage-taking.

A second is that the Republican Party is in a state of dysfunction that will haunt the nation again soon. It was obvious from the start that this tactic was doomed to fail, and the extremists plowed ahead anyway, costing the economy about $24 billion, according to Standard & Poor’s. It is no coincidence that these same people deny the science behind climate change. When hard reality collides with their ideology, they ignore the reality.

That stridency kills any chance of bipartisan agreement on the debt. Every bipartisan panel that has examined the problem, including the Simpson-Bowles commission, has concluded that a combination of tax increases and spending cuts will be required. That is also the only political bargain with a prayer for success.

Obama has embraced that consensus. He has reached his hand across the aisle by agreeing to cuts in Social Security and Medicare that have infuriated the party’s liberal base. To cut a deal, he needs partners on the Republican side who will rebuff the extremists in their ranks as well. Given the state of disarray in the party, that kind of leadership is hard to imagine.

So yes, this passes for a good day in Washington. But the nation’s political crisis is only postponed, not solved. And that won’t change until the Cruz faction of the Republican Party is put to rest for good.

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