I thought for sure that he would not make a deal in the end with Obama, but it appears that he did manage to throw water on those lines in the sand that Obama drew and make a fiscal deal that passed both houses of Congress. I argued that McConnell could not make a deal with someone who is considered evil incarnate in Kentucky, at least not do that and keep his seat in 2014. I stated that McConnell would throw in some poison pill to kill the deal at the last minute.
Instead, McConnell planted a time bomb that is waiting to go off in two months.
We get to go through all this again in two months with this shitty deal that was negotiated. Republicans are itching to extract huge spending cuts when we have to deal with the idiotic debt ceiling. Obama swore in public that he wanted to do away with that issue in this round of negotiations, but you all saw how that line in the sand disappeared.
Anybody here believe that Obama will stick to his guns the next time this comes up in two months?
I think the debt ceiling hostage taking will be McConnell's escape hatch with the bigots and idiots back home. He might be in trouble now, but when he and his fellow Republicans threaten to destroy what is left of the American economy, Obama and the Democrats will cave. I expect Medicare and Social Security "entitlement reforms" to be enacted - savage cuts that is.
Remember how quickly Obama was to throw in a chained CPI for Social Security as a sweetener for this most recent deal. Granted, it did not come to fruition, but you can bet that Republicans have not forgotten how Obama behaved and about that offer. Obama is willing to sacrifice major Democratic programs to satisfy Republicans.
I know what you are thinking. "Those cuts would hurt a lot of Kentuckians, so why would the voters in Kentucky cheer for that?' We have a lot of people who want to see Obama embarrassed or hurt, and if they have to cut off their noses to spite their faces, so be it. Besides, those that support cuts in Medicare and Social Security believe that others benefiting from those programs are freeloaders, except for themselves of course.
So Mitch McConnell was smarter than I thought. He might take a small hit now for dealing with the Devil, but he get his due in two months.