Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Media villagers have made much in recent days of Tea-Publicans indicating a willingness to break their "no new taxes" pledge to the Tax Fairy, Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. Really?
Take a closer look at what these Tea-Publicans are actually saying. They are couching what they say in hypotheticals, and making it contingent upon Democrats agreeing to gut social security and Medicare. They haven't broken ranks at all with this corrupt K Street lobbyist.
I have to agree with Greg Sargent at The Plum Line:
It’s remarkable how many people are getting snookered into thinking there’s anything meaningful about this supposed “break” with Norquist. What matters is what Republicans actually support in the way of tax hikes. And again: Agreeing to more revenues only via closing loopholes is not a major concession. It’s merely agreeing to the Mitt Romney approach. Meanwhile, there are other signs that Republicans are not serious about showing more flexibility.
John Boehner recently said Obamacare must be part of the debt talks. Now Politico reports on a remarkable exchange between Obama and Boehner, in which the Speaker told Obama that the coming debt ceiling fight constitutes “my leverage.” Boehner responded to Obama’s demand that he agree to raise it by saying: “There is a price for everything.”
That's right, the Weeper of the House and his Tea-Publican insurrectionists are threatening to take America hostage again and to default on the national debt — an act of economic terrorism — to gain "leverage" in negotiations for tax cuts for the top two percent of income earners, and gutting social security and Medicare for everyone else.
Of course, in this case, the thing that has a “price” includes averting something that would be dangerous for the whole country — default. This is the clearest sign yet that we’re headed for another debt ceiling showdown, and you can bet that this time, Congressional Democrats will insist that no concessions be made to House Republicans.
The America public should run these Tea-Publican insurrectionists out of town on a rail for taking the country hostage and engaging in economic terrorism against the American people.
Ed Kilgore at the Political Animal blog sums it up nicely. Extremism Vindicated Once Again?
The remarkable ability of conservatives to drag American politics to the
Right by taking extremist positions and then offering to “compromise”
by accepting policies deemed conservative the week before last is hardly
a new thing; it was the subject of a fine book
by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson six years ago. But the MSM keeps
taking the bait, which is why we now have Lindsay Graham and Saxbe
Chambliss being lionized for making fake concessions to stop America
from plunging over a fake “fiscal cliff,” asking only the small
concession that the Bush tax cuts, the principal cause of current
long-term public debt, be extended forever, and oh, by the way, could we
also cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits? I mean, you
have to hand it to them: who else but American conservatives would have
the audacity after losing an election to ask for bipartisan cover for their two most important long-term fiscal objectives?
The "lamestream" media that is the echo chamber for the right-wing noise machine is responsible, and unaccountable.