Via Newsbusters, Major Garrett explains to Chris Matthews the fairly obvious political reasons why the GOP can’t and won’t agree to any tax hikes as part of a debt ceiling deal:
Obama knows it would be political suicide for the GOP to cave on raising taxes as part of the debt deal. Oh, they may well cave in some other way – namely, by raising the ceiling without securing serious, real spending cuts – but not on tax hikes. Fortunately, good politics for the GOP also happens to be good policy; everybody knows that raising taxes in the middle of a recession is the last thing you want to do. I still don’t get why Boehner and McConnell aren’t just telling Obama to go fly a kite (or go golfing, or whatever), and come back when he’s ready to do a deal without his precious tax hikes.
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