The Great Orange Satan

Boehner weeps at his inability to cut food stamps to orphans.

Boehner laid down his marker today.  He wants $2,000,000,000,000 in spending cuts in order to keep the US out of default.

What does that even mean?  Two trillion?  There simply isn't enough discretionary spending to make those cuts.  Are you going to end the Defense Department?  End Medicare?  Or simply make the cuts over so long a term as to be meaningless?  Hey, let's cut one dollar a year for two trillion years!

This is exactly the sort of B.S. media pandering that the GOP gets away with with impunity.  "Look, Boehner wants to cut two trillion.  As a political reporter, I don't what that would mean in terms of actual governmental programs, because I slept through math class, but that seems VERY SERIOUS.  So, Democrats, how much are YOU going to cut?  Because cutting spending - as we have established in our Very Serious People Weekly Meeting - is the only way to balance the budget,"

And then we have Obama appearing to negotiate with himself and losing.  And then the EPA disappears.

I have no idea how this will play out.  At this point, trying to predict the next move by the Tea Party is like trying to predict the next word in a Sarah Palin word salad.  I think Boehner is enough of a corporate tool that he won't seriously risk default, but then again, I also don't think he's all that smart.

Maybe the "bin Laden Bump" helps Obama's negotiating position (update: bin Laden still dead), but I think it can also cement it, if he wants to really have this fight.  Obama is in a close poll fight with "Generic Republican" but he seems to be winning against actual named Republicans.  The more people see what the GOP has become, the more they tolerate the faults they see in Obama and the Democrats.  Combine that with the realization among many people that the GOP would end Medicare if they could, and Obama and the Democrats could make the GOP politically toxic if they can convince people that the GOP wants to default on the debt unless Obama agrees to end all federal spending on education, cancer research, highways and healthcare.

Again, this depends on the Democratic party's political ability and so I am not sanguine.