Boehner Walks Away From a Bad Deal

James Pethokoukis calls it a "Reagan moment":

So in the end, it was bit of a Ronald Reagan moment for John Boehner on Saturday. Just as the U.S. president walked away from a bad arms control agreement with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik, Iceland in 1986, the House speaker passed on President Barack Obama’s mega-debt reduction deal in Washington.

In both case, the asking price was just too high. For Reagan, it was lethal limitations on his Strategic Defense Initiative. For Boehner, it was a trillion-dollar tax distraction from America’s true fiscal threat: spending run amok: “Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes.”

Walking away is the best approach to an ideologically-driven president who think higher taxes and bigger government is the answer to everything.

Apparently, the left was given Obama lots of trouble and that caused him to become especially hard-headed. Continuing with the article:

A GOP congressional source was a bit less diplomatic, telling me Saturday afternoon via email:

Their fierce insistence on higher taxes is beyond bizarre. After months of demanding ‘clean’ increase to avert economic calamity (default), WH threatens economic calamity (default) unless they get economic calamity (trillions in tax hikes). No wonder these guys are governing over an economic calamity (9.2% & growth malaise), w/ an economic calamity on the horizon (debt explosion as mapped out in president’s budget). The bipartisan consensus on tax reform (broader base & lower rates) was championed by President’s fiscal commission, and yet now is being rebuked by the President. Lowering top rates that would help make America more competitive was too large a leap for a true class warrior.

Indeed, as negotiations wore on, Obama got tougher on taxes (pushed hard by the hard left), and the deal he was cooking up almost certainly wouldn’t have been revenue neutral as he tweaked rates and reduced tax deductions. Not even close. Nor did it help that Obama reportedly balked at a spending-cut trigger if certainly tax reforms were not completed.

Obama clearly has no idea how to create a growing economy. Everything he's done has made things worse. Boehner should give him absolutely nothing.