The vote – 221-201 – relied primarily on Democrats to carry the legislation, the first debt ceiling increase since 2009 that was not attached to other measures.
Only 28 Republicans voted yes. But it effectively ended a three-year, Tea Party-fueled era when a series of budget showdowns raised the threat of debt defaults and government shutdowns, rattled economic confidence and brought serious scrutiny from an international community questioning Washington’s ability to govern.Gee, the Times could have also written it this way: "it ended an Obama-Reid fueled era of unprecedented intransigence regards negotiating on anything to do with the debt ceiling, despite a rich history of past Congresses doing just that". But bias is job one in the Fit to Print newsroom.
Hey, it's clear to see why Boehner punted--nothing really to gain from drawing a red line on this with the media in Obama's hip pocket and Jack Lew threatening to turn the dollar into Pesos or whatever his latest threat was. Johnny Boy also recently punted on the immigration debate, which was a bone thrown to the Tea Party, so he probably figured he'd better not push it and can always pull this clean debt ceiling card out whenever Obama starts pestering him over saying no on something else. Probably by Friday.
But today's vote, although strategically correct, should be a lesson to the Speaker. Aside from the fact it will only serve as fodder to those Democrats (and some Republicans) interested in protecting the Plutocracy from any rogue grassroots movements like the TP by exploiting the GOP divide, it also shows how fast the Democrats and media (sorry for the redundancy) will turn on the GOP when they do something the way the Democrats have demanded. That's why many people are enjoying this Rand Paul push-back on the silly-ass "war on women", and it was refreshing to see Prebius defend it.
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