Tax and Spend

Obama pushing for higher taxes by closing loopholes. This is a debate he'll win. It's already been set up. Romney advocated closing loopholes to raise revenue. Boehner offered to close loopholes to raise revenue. And the last deal closed some loopholes to raise revenue. Now that Republicans agreed to raise tax rates and since they supported closing loopholes before, they can't make an argument against closing loopholes. And they don't want to. This has all been orchestrated from the start. Republicans appear boxed in because they agreed to be boxed in so they could raise taxes and then tell their constituents they had no choice. Obama and Boehner are working together to loot in good cop, bad cop style.

George Will's faith in a balanced budget amendment is misplaced. Since when does the government obey the Constitution?

It's likely that forcing a government shutdown would harm Republicans politically, but it would greatly benefit the country. Boehner will never support this. He's had several opportunities to use the power of the House to reduce spending, but he doesn't do it because he doesn't want to do it. Neither does the Republican establishment. They all work to advance their own interests, and shutting down the government means they get less money kicked back from their cronies. The thing is, any political payback will be temporary.

"As recent Washington arrival Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, pointed out, "we didn't default on our debt" after the notorious 1995 shutdown battle between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. "And the result was balanced budgets -- and some of the greatest fiscal responsibility we have seen in modern times from Congress -- because fiscal conservatives stood together and said, 'We need to be responsible.'""

Republicans took a temporary hit, but then they won power eight years. Republicans get their arguments to the people when they want. They just usually don't want to make small government arguments.