Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Visual Source: Newseum

Politico:

Washington?s political mood darkened dramatically Tuesday, as the debt ceiling crisis showed signs of spinning out of control and Republicans began looking for an escape path from the default showdown they helped create.

Note the language. It's spot on.

Greg Sargent:

The [McConnell] proposal itself seems like a tacit admission that GOP leaders had concluded that they were left with no endgame in the current standoff but to cave and raise revenues ? a course of action that is viewed as completely unacceptable to conservatives. It?s an effort to transfer full ownership of the debt ceiling hike to President Obama, while giving Republicans a way of casting votes against raising it that won?t have any effect or stop it from getting raised.

This time the GOP has screwed itself even more than it's screwed the country. Who'd have thunk it?

NY Times:

But many conservatives immediately assailed Mr. McConnell?s proposal as a panicky sell-out, much as they in recent days had attacked the House Republican leader, Speaker John A. Boehner, for privately discussing with Mr. Obama a debt-reduction deal that could raise revenues as well as cut spending ? ultimately forcing Mr. Boehner to retreat.

Mr. Boehner, though, suggested he could be open to the McConnell proposal, highlighting concern among the Republican leadership about how the showdown with the administration would end, the blame the party could suffer if a debt-limit crisis hurt the economy and the challenge of leading their rank and file into a compromise.

You mean someone in the GOP actually read this April poll (Shutdown Holds Risk for GOP)?

But Republicans find a different opinion among the independents who helped them make gains in 2010 and who they will need again in 2012. Political independents argue for GOP lawmakers to find compromise, 66% to 30%. ..

"That's a very precarious gap to negotiate," said Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster and co-director of the Journal/NBC News poll, who did daily polling for then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich during the government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996.

Jennifer Rubin: Mitch McConnell is much smarter than you, me, and all his conservative critics. You see, his capitulation has no tax increases, so it's a fantastic idea. That no one understands (and that conservatives hate it) it is their problem, not McConnell's.

WaPo:

Social Security boosters worry about the impact on older recipients. But switching to the ?chained? formula also holds appeal for liberals because it would bring in $87 billion in revenue over 10 years by revising income tax brackets ? a tax increase that Republicans might accept because it is technical in nature and coupled with Social Security cuts.

Then again, "nobody likes it" might be closer to the truth. More, same source:

The entitlement programs face funding shortfalls in coming years, Medicare more so than Social Security. But many Democrats are dismayed that the programs are being targeted to close deficits that nonpartisan budget analysts say are driven in large part by the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003. Better, these Democrats say, to address the future entitlement shortfalls separately. But with Republicans refusing to consider tax increases, the entitlements are an obvious place to look for budget savings. And Obama appears eager to use the debt-ceiling talks to address the longer-term entitlement problem.

Harold Meyerson:

In Obama?s defense, the Republicans he has to deal with have moved so far right that they make even the Gingrich-era GOP with which Bill Clinton grappled look like the Berkeley City Council. The fiscal constraints on his presidency far exceed those Clinton confronted, too. But if the factors that have pushed Obama rightward are at least intelligible, those that have prompted the Republicans to winnow their agenda to one-note opposition to taxes and spending are nowhere so obvious.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/MvWsxrO0tsw/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Round-up

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