Collective Conscious

Cohn:

As for Obama’s own agenda, Boehner promised, “We’re going to do every­thing — and I mean every­thing we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, what­ever we can.”

Drum:

[Obama:] “I don’t give up just because I didn’t get coop­er­a­tion on this issue; I’ll try the next issue.”

Benen:

The like­li­hood of the GOP using the debt limit to force a shut­down is already pretty high, and the fight could come early next year.

This issue and many oth­ers will be a cru­cial test for Repub­li­cans. Either they can revert to busi­ness as usual and slip the debt increase through qui­etly, or they can force a fight. Given can­di­dates’ rhetoric, it’s tough to imag­ine any­one agree­ing to “rub­ber stamp” Obama’s “out of con­trol spend­ing”… but it should also be really clear from past expe­ri­ence that a show­down with the pres­i­dent might not end in Repub­li­cans’ favor. So the party has a severe ten­sion com­ing up: as a whole, they want to pass impor­tant leg­is­la­tion like the debt limit, but each indi­vid­ual rep­re­sen­ta­tive wants to be heard loud and clear as stand­ing against it.

I expect we’ll see a lot of ten­sions like this, and it will really give Obama a chance to shine in a way that he could never do when his own party was writ­ing (and pay­ing) the bills.

(photo: make­less­noise)