It's over:
House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) told fellow Republicans the House would vote later this week on an increase in the federal borrowing limit without added amendments or conditions, in a major retreat from the GOP's strategy of demanding concessions in exchange for a debt- limit increase.
[...]
Mr. Boehner's retreat marks a major victory for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats who have long insisted that the debt limit should be approved without conditions. Democrats and the White House contend increasing the borrowing limit is a routine measure needed to fulfill fiscal obligations already incurred.
This is the gasping, wheezing end of this year's efforts from the GOP to extract concessions for paying the country's bills... and probably the end of it for good.
This entire project has been a Republican effort to establish a precedent by which they can use the threat of default to gain policy victories that they could not achieve legislatively. By holding firm each time, and ignoring the shrieking from the GOP, the Democrats have served their country and its citizens well.
This year's half-hearted effort was sad to watch, frankly, and nobody but the frothing nutcases in the Tea Party faction thought there was a chance of success. Now, a few dozen of them will vote no, but the debt ceiling extension will pass, and it is unlikely that there will be an appetite to go throught these futile motions again.
C'est fini.
And not for nothing, Wall St. Journal, but "Democrats and the White House" don't "contend increasing the borrowing limit is a routine measure needed to fulfill fiscal obligations already incurred." Increasing the borrowing limit is actually a routine measure needed to fulfill fiscal obligations already incurred.
This passage reads like a parody of phony balance. You might as well write, "Democrats and the White House contend one plus one equals two."