 The Tea Party's Prize With the louder than normal bluster by both real and wannabe Tea Party Republicans over the past few days, and the flurry of major Republican op-eds on Wednesday, we figured something else was really behind all the political rustling in the bushes.
Sure enough, yesterday afternoon, CNN's Dana Bash flushed out a report about the deal now floating around Capitol Hill, to potentially solve at least the debt ceiling fight. Not too long after that initial report, multiple other sources began confirming that multiple key Republicans in Congress now appear ready to send President Obama a clean debt ceiling bill, even as they may still keep the rest of the government closed.
Since tea party Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana whined a week ago today that House Republicans just HAD to get something out of this fight, even if they didn't know what it was, the question hasn't really been IF Republicans would claim a prize before they dealt with the reality of the debt ceiling. It's mostly been a question of when.
Still, like Ed Kilgore of Washington Monthly pointed out, the Tea Party extremists have fully expected to get a prize of some kind out of this whole affair. After looking at both the economic and political costs of the Tea Party shutdown so far, it appears their prize isn't coming from either President Obama or Democrats in Congress.
Their prize appears to have come from Wall Street, at the expense of all Americans... |
