The White House Wants a Crisis

It's pretty obvious from Jennifer Rubin's report in the Washington Post that Obama is not interested in a bipartisan budget agreement, he wants a crisis:

A Republican aide e-mails me: “The Speaker, Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell all agreed on the general framework of a two-part plan. A short-term increase (with cuts greater than the increase), combined with a committee to find long-term savings before the rest of the increase would be considered. Sen. Reid took the bipartisan plan to the White House and the President said no.”

If this is accurate the president is playing with fire. By halting a bipartisan deal he imperils the country’s finances and can rightly be accused of putting partisanship above all else. The ONLY reason to reject a short-term, two-step deal embraced by both the House and Senate is to avoid another approval-killing face-off for President Obama before the election. Next to pulling troops out of Afghanistan to fit the election calendar, this is the most irresponsible and shameful move of his presidency.

As for the House, why not pass the deal that Sen. Harry Reid agreed to, send it to the Senate and leave town? Enough already.

John Boehner just tweeted this:

johnboehner: POTUS wants a $2.4T blank check to get him through the next election, w/out cuts that exceed the hike. This is indefensible

Absolutely, so don't give it to him. Follow Rubin's advice and pass the bill you want and adjourn the House.

And what about Harry Reid's option that sounded like he was willing to take $2.7 trillion in cuts with no additional revenue?  A sham, says Rubin:

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is devising a sham that will never pass muster in the House. A Capitol Hill source with knowledge of the plan tells me: “It includes $1.2 trillion in OCO [Overseas Contingency Operations] savings . . . which was assumed anyway, $1.2 trillion (over $1.1 trillion less than [Majority Leader Eric] Cantor identified in the Biden talks) and $300 billion in interest savings.” A Senate aide says dryly that Reid “has about a trillion in ‘savings’ from ending the war in Iraq that’s already going to end.” And a disgusted House adviser bluntly tells me that Reid’s plan “isn’t real.”

I bet the White House isn't used to taking such abuse from the pages of the Washington Post.