When you lose an election you get frustrated. When you’re sitting in a subpar 2 percent economy, and are faced with tax hikes rather than marginal rate reductions, you get even more frustrated. And when you’re staring at $47 trillion in spending over the next ten years, and $8.6 trillion in deficits, your frustration levels climb even higher.
These are among the frustrations that led a number of House Republicans to pull back from Speaker John Boehner’s so-called Plan B. Nobody looked good on the Republican side when Thursday night’s vote fell through. But you have to understand their frustrations. Losing an election is no fun.
I don’t blame John Boehner. His idea is the best compromise currently available. Or put another way, it’s the least-bad option out there. It was even backed by Paul Ryan and Grover Norquist.
Read my full column here.