re: #215 simoom

“Don’t test us, we’re just crazy enough to do it!”

[Link: www.politico.com…]

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Of course, what’s missing from this is obviously if somewhere just under half of Boehner’s caucus isn’t willing to default, Boehner simply needs to drop the Hastert Rule again, and a debt ceiling increase should sail through.

The problem with that is Dennis Hastert was right when he said after the sequester delay and tax deal passed: “Maybe you can do it once, maybe you can do it twice, but when you start making deals when you have to get Democrats to pass the legislation, you are not in power anymore”. The basic issue is that passing bills mostly on Democratic votes means that it will be Democratic concerns that are paramount, and Republican priorities will be given lesser consideration. The problem John Boehner has is that, as the House is currently composed, 20 House Republicans could block a vote on the debt ceiling simply by refusing to vote in favor of a debt limit increase under any politically possible circumstances.

What those Republicans fail to understand (as Ramesh Ponnuru points out in the current issue of National Review) is that their desire to avoid voting for more debt would then rob Speaker Boehner of bargaining power, while leaves him with no practical choice but to accept a deal that leans strongly Democratic. Thus, those who in practical terms refuse to negotiate with Obama at all will likely relegate themselves to the sidelines, where they may then freely guard their ‘purity’ with out having to actually do legislative work.