There’s another option. GOP walks away from the table and passes legislation that makes the tax cuts permanent for everyone, steep entitlement cuts, and immediate discretionary cuts with the debt ceiling clock ticking and default equaling a guaranteed economic depression.

Put Obamee in his place. The House controls spending, period. The President’s job is to sign on to what the House spends. That how it worked when Naaaaaaaancy was in charge, yes?

I don’t see that happening while the House is led by that gutless mewling surrender monkey boohoo Boehner.

I agree. Some argue that the G.O.P. will get blamed anyway, when the Democrat/”progressive” policies fail. That’s too much of a stretch, though, even for the Democrat media complex, because when the Obama “plan” is passed via G.O.P. abstention (“voting present”), the media will herald it as an Obama victory and a G.O.P. surrender.

Has the tactic you’re suggesting even been tried before? If not, its novelty will contribute to reinforcing the “narrative” that Obama/Democrats own post-2012 economic policies.

One surefire way to ensure that the G.O.P. will continue to be blamed for any and every progressive policy failure is to give Obama a formal “deal,” all dressed up with a nice ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Of course, the Stupid Party won’t do what you’re recommending. They’re only too happy to participate in their own beclownment ceremonies. They’ll pretend to fight for this and that, publicly capitulate at that last minute, and then “co-sign” whatever stupid deal is slapped together. The purpose of the deal, of course, will be to set-up the G.O.P. to take the fall for the next round of failures.

Far better to be damned for doing the right thing than praised for doing the wrong thing. A principled political party would know that.

The House ‘leadership’ needs to stop playing Obama’s game of seeking a ‘grand bargain.’ A bargain he’ll never accept.

The House needs to start taking bites and make the Senate the fall guy.

Start by passing a bill to make permanent the CURRENT middle class tax rates. Once that issue is settled then me can move on to the rest of it.

I did some Christmas shopping at the link RSM. I did a lot last year too.

The return to Clinton tax rates will not eliminate the need for an increase in the debt ceiling.

But allowing the sequester to occur doesn’t preclude the possibility of making the Democrats responsible for declining to stop the tax increases.

The Democrats are pretending that they don’t want middle class rates to rise – make it self evident they are lying.

This is the only suggestion I’ve seen that might have any impact at all. The “permanent” part will rankle Obama.

Exactly. Granted, it would only be ‘permanent’ in the ‘lasts until the next time Congress is in session’ sense, but the symbolism, and need for him to address it directly, would change the trajectory of the media presentation.