In perhaps the most sober conservative assessment of the ongoing debt limit negotiations, Michael Barone makes a conservative case why conservatives can’t yet get what we want:
Republicans want to reverse that enormous policy change [increasing the federal government's share of gross domestic product from 21 percent to 25 percent], and many are ready to denounce any debt limit deal that leaves them short of that goal.
Before doing so, they ought to consult the Constitution. To achieve the changes they want and that voters endorsed in 2010, they need to win again in 2012. The deal that gets them closer to that is what they ought to be seeking now.
Barone reminds us that while Americans elected a Republican majority in the House last fall, in 2008, our fellow citizens elected Barack Obama to a four-year term. The same constitution which set the president’s term also arms him with a veto, thus the sage pundit reminds us, “you have to win at least two elections in a row to make the kind of policy changes that the Obama Democrats made in 2009 and 2010 and that House Republicans want to make now.”
Read the whole thing.
