Senate Debt Ceiling Deal Is a Complete Crushing of the repugican cabal

 

Do you want to know what Republicans get out of the proposed Senate debt ceiling deal? Nothing, but a crushing surrender.

The repugicans will get no changes to Obamacare. They will get no further spending cuts. The government will be funded until mid-late January, and here’s the kicker according to Greg Sargent, “According to the Democratic aide, Democrats are likely to demand a debt limit extension into early summer — nine months, rather than six – with the idea being that the closer to the 2014 elections we get, the harder it will be for repugicans to stage another debt ceiling hostage crisis. Democrats don’t want such a crisis. They would prefer that repugicans simply agree to extend the debt limit cleanly. But by pushing this so deep into the 2014 election season, they are giving themselves a kind of insurance policy that guarantees that if repugicans do stage another debt limit crisis, repugicans will pay a serious political price for it.”
If repugicans want the medical device tax repealed Democrats are going to demand that tax loopholes be closed for the wealthy and corporations, and Senate Democrats are even going to finally get the budget conference that they have asked the House repugicans for 18 times.
What do repugicans get out of this? Nothing, but record low poll numbers.
This deal, is a major victory for Democrats. It meets every single one of President Obama’s criteria. Obamacare (the ACA) is not changed. No budget negotiations occur before the government is reopened and the debt ceiling is raised, and there will be no short term threat of default by House repugicans on the debt ceiling.
The reason why House repugicans wanted a short term deal is two fold. They viewed the CR and the debt ceiling as their last chance to kill the ACA before it is implemented fully on January 1, 2014. Secondly, vulnerable House repugicans wanted to avoid another crisis during the 2014 election.
By placing the expiration of the debt ceiling extension right in the middle of the 2014 election, Democrats are setting up a lose/lose scenario for House repugicans. Boehner and company will have to fight among themselves as the election campaign is going on. Another debt ceiling fiasco could tear open all of the cabal wounds, or repugicans could to again threaten default and lose the House.
A group of House repuglicans and their Senate leader Ted Cruz thought they could ransom their way into killing the ACA. Instead, the repugicans are being offered a series of crushing terms of surrender that will be impossible for wingnut activists and the tea party House repugicans to swallow.
It’s clear that by cutting this deal with Majority Leader Reid, Mitch McConnell and the Senate repugicans are washing their hands of the Cruz/Boehner folly. If the country had defaulted, it would have been because John Boehner refused to stand up to his own House repugicans and do what is right.
Democrats and Senate repugicans are sending the signal that if the country defauled, the blame should go on Boehner and his tea crazed House repugicans. Harry Reid is laying out the terms of surrender. It’s unclear whether House repugicans realize that they’ve lost the war.