Walking Away From a Bad Deal

The big political news yesterday afternoon was John Boehner's decision to stop negotiating with Obama.  That was the right move.  Obama is so welded to the idea of a massive tax increase, and the Republicans are so opposed to same, it makes no sense for the two to keep yapping at each other.

Obama wants something like $1.3 trillion in higher taxes in exchange for some unspecified number of spending cuts to be phased in over 10 years.  History with both Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, both of whom agreed to a similar deal, tells us that Democrats will say just about anything to get higher taxes knowing full well they'll never enact the spending cuts.  It's a bad deal and Boehner was right to walk away from it.

I hear that Obama has summoned congressional leaders to the White House.  However, the president cannot compel such attendance and given the vitriolic press conferences yesterday, I think the GOP would be wise to skip the meeting and let Obama sweat a little longer.

Obama showed yesterday that he's a weak leader.  This is the first time he's ever had to manage a situation like this and he doesn't know what to do.  He had apparently agreed to a debt ceiling increase with spending cuts and no revenue enhancements, but then folded when congressional Dems went crazy on him.  That's not leadership.  He's not up to the job and all the GOP has to do is wait him out.