The party that loses by winning | xpostfactoid

How do the Republicans manage to extract so much blood from those with little?  Is it because even the Dems in Congress are basically too rich to understand the pain they inflict?  Is Obama a poor negotiator? Or does he have little leverage when extremists are in control of the House of Representatives? Read the grim story laid out by Andrew Sprung. - GWC
The party that loses by winning | xpostfactoid:

The party that loses by winning

On July 4, 2011, when the Republicans were in the process of nailing Obama to the debt ceiling, David Brooks wrote:

If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred billion dollars of revenue increases.

With about $4 trillion in deficit reduction over ten years the agreed target, Obama was ready to settle for just $800 billion in new revenue, a roughly 4-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue (with gains booked through reduced interest payments). But the GOP passed up 'the deal of the century. A four-fifths win for the no-new-taxes ever crowd wasn't good enough for them.

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