Maybe John Boehner could finally get House Republicans to say yes if

President Obama pretended to oppose raising debt limit (Jason Reed/Reuters)



Maybe John Boehner could finally get House Republicans to say yes if

President Obama pretended to oppose raising debt limit (Jason Reed/Reuters)



I have confidence in the bipartisan leaders of the Congress that can come together and to ensure that we have an agreement that will allow the country to avoid default and meets the principles that we've outlined: spending cuts that must be greater than the increase in the debt limit and no tax increases.

Brian Beutler observes that Republicans have stumbled over Harry Reid's offer to raise the debt limit through 2013 in exchange for $2.7 trillion in spending cuts without any new tax revenue*. It's a important point: on the face of it, the deal should be acceptable to John Boehner. On Friday night, here's how he described his bottom line

Reid's $2.7 trillion spending cut proposal, which mirrors Nancy Pelosi's proposal from Friday, is fully consistent with what Boehner said, but instead of embracing it, Boehner is pursuing a two-step approach based on the GOP's "Cut, Cap,and Balance." Boehner's approach won't fly with Democrats because it would cut entitlements without raising revenue and would manufacture another debt-limit crisis six months from now.

Even if that debt limit crisis were to pass without incident, Boehner's plan still wouldn't cut as much as Reid's. So why won't House Republicans support Reid's version? Based on all available evidence, it's because they just can't say yes to anything.

At this point, I hope President Obama is spending as much time deciding what to do if the House fails to raise the debt limit as he is deciding on how to convince them to do the right thing. If they fail to act, he's probably going to need to ignore the debt limit, and he needs to start laying the groundwork for that now.





*Entitlements wouldn't be touched either, and $1 trillion of the savings would come from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, $500 billion from interest savings and the rest in discretionary spending cuts.