Watching the press conference today, it was hard not to be struck by the extent to which Barack Obama really and truly wants a grand bargain on the deficit. One doesn’t say this kind of thing at a press conference, but you could easily imagine him saying, “Look, Republicans, I agree with you — I want to enact steep cuts in spending, but to sell my base on it you need to throw me some tax hikes.”The GOP is finally signalling it wants out of the looming debacle, and the McConnell plan is the fastest way out, but Obama has bigger ambitions. He wants a grand bargain.
Apparently Eric Cantor feels he's in some kind of pissing contest with Obama, but that is the farthest thing from the truth. Because of the relentless growth of the debt, the debt ceiling acts like an alarm clock. Default will occur on schedule whether the GOP wants to shoot the hostage (aka, the U.S. economy), or not. When you engage in a pissing contest with an alarm clock about whether it will strike midnight, or not, you ALWAYS lose!
If default occurs, Eric Cantor will be the scapegoat. Obama can rest easy on that.
So, does Obama shoot the hostage to get what he wants? Time is on his side, after all!
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