It Was Eric Cantor Who Killed the Debt Ceiling Deal

Kevin Drum points out It Was Eric Cantor Who Killed the Debt Ceiling Deal

"Here's why this timeline is important. It's been an article of faith among conservatives that the grand bargain collapsed because Obama got greedy and asked for more revenue. And there's certainly a kernel of truth to that: a $1.2 trillion revenue increase was obviously a tougher lift for Boehner than an $800 billion increase.

But based on Cantor's own testimony to Lizza, that wasn't really what killed the deal. Regardless of the size of the revenue increase, Cantor just flatly didn't want to reach an agreement. He didn't want to give Obama a political win, and figured that a failed deal would hurt Obama enough that Republicans could win the presidency and then write their own bill. He persuaded Boehner to go along, and the deal was dead.

Bottom line: It wasn't Obama's $400 billion that killed the deal. It was Eric Cantor who killed the deal. We now have that straight from the horse's mouth."