Jacobson Is Right: Forget About The "Big Deal"

Some on the right have been fantasizing about a "Big Deal" with Obama. Can we hope for modest entitlement reform in exchange for a little compromise on tax increases? William Jacobson says no. I agree:

We just have to last another 18 months and win the presidential election, and then our long national nightmare will come to an end. Until then, we’re just trying to limit the damage.

Until he put forth his “plan,” Mitch McConnell was on the right track.

You can’t make a “big deal” with this President and this Senate. The best you can do is limit the damage done by the (Nancy)-Harry-Barack tag team.

McConnell’s plan wasn’t damage control; to the contrary, it made Republicans participants in the continuing damage.

There is a way out, spending constraints short of an overhaul of entitlements and no tax increases. At the end of the day, Obama will have to take it.

And if he doesn’t, the damage is on him.

Obama is ideologically incapable of making a deal that's good for America. (If you think that's an overstatement, examine his record.)

A big deal with Obama will do big damage. A smaller deal will do less.

In addressing the looming debt limit, the GOP should make the smallest possible deal ― just to get us all across the November 2012 finish line. After that, there may be hope for real progress.