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Parker: Shutdown gives Boehner leverage
Suppose you are John Boehner. Faced with a Democratic Senate and president, he has only two points of leverage — appropriations and raising the debt limit — which were set in place by greater minds than all these present.
What Republicans hope to accomplish by tying demands to the debt ceiling is a grand bargain to include a package of entitlement and tax reform. Sound familiar? The president can refuse to negotiate, but at 3 a.m. when the phone rings and it’s Angela Merkel inquiring just what the hell is going on, it won’t be John Boehner’s phone ringing. It will be President Obama’s. That’s leverage. During the last debt-ceiling battle, Boehner managed to secure more than $2 trillion in cuts and no taxes.
That’s context. eace
Read Obama's lips, there will be no "grand bargain" over paying the bills the House already authorized.