It’s all About Trust

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Madison Project:

 

It’s all About Trust

 

 

If you listen to many in the Republican intelligentsia, you will hear this accusation that conservative rebels destroyed the Republican Party. The reality is that nothing changed after the defeat of Boehner’s plan B other than Republicans not buying into the premise of raising revenue for the federal leviathan.

 

Before last night’s vote, we faced two possible outcomes; either we go over the cliff (which is not even such a cliff because rates could always be extended retroactively) or Boehner was going to cave on 90% of what Obama wanted. The same thing applies now. Boehner was never going to stand by his plan. And if it was worth voting for Boehner’s plan, which according to their logic represented a tax cut for 99.81%, then it was worth voting for Obama’s plan, which, by the same logic is a tax cut for 99% of taxpayers.

 

This all gets back to the issue of trust, not the issue of compromise. Most of us would be willing to compromise on some level if we knew there would be some point at which Boehner would hold the line and fight for his own position. Instead, we saw him regress from no revenues to yes revenues, albeit