[numinertyuesk]

LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics...,4560042.story

As negotiators reconvened at the White House on Wednesday for another round of debt talks, House Republicans appeared to dig in even deeper in their resistance to any sort of deal to raise the federal debt ceiling even as one party leader foretold disaster for the GOP if its members failed to act.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader who has proposed a fallback plan that would likely ensure the $14.3-trillion debt limit would be raised, said in a radio interview that a default by the United States could critically damage his party heading into the 2012 elections.

A default, McConnell told talk show host Laura Ingraham, “destroys your brand.”

The Kentucky senator said the economic consequences of a default would give President Obama an opportunity to blame the GOP for the country’s economic straits. “Look, he owns the economy,” McConnell said. “He’s been in office for three years. We refuse to let him entice him into co-ownership of a bad economy.”

McConnell said that at this point the GOP had two choices: Either make a bad deal — from their perspective — with Obama or take the country into default, which, McConnell suggested would do even more damage to the party. He compared the situation to 1995, when the GOP forced a government shutdown.

“We know that’s going to happen. Just like we knew shutting down the government in 1995 was not going to work for us,” he said. “It helped Bill Clinton get reelected. I refuse to help Barack Obama get reelected.”

[Druspills]

I've been saying this for the past two years, but this really is end times for the Republican party. They're going the way of the Whigs, a paragraph in a history textbook. They've completely divorced themselves from the needs of the vast majority of voters, and are simply no longer relevant, politically or culturally.

[Erexecike]

A recent Gallup poll (7/7-10) asked Americans their preferences for taxes increases vs. spending cuts to reduce the deficit. Overall, only 20% preferred all spending cuts with no tax increases. Among Republicans, only 26% preferred all spending cuts while 68% preferred some mix of the two.

One reporter today confronted a Republican Congressman with that poll and asked, given that 68% of his party's constituents wanted some mix of tax increases and spending cuts, did he believe there was room to bargain in this debt ceiling debate?

He gave the party line: no tax increases. The American public won't stand for it.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/148472/De...Tax-Hikes.aspx

Tell me again this isn't about political grandstanding and the Republicans' pledge to limit Pres. Obama to one term.