Will We Really Default Just So Obama Doesn't Have to Raise the Debt Ceiling Before the Election?

If you take a look at the CBO scoring of the Reid and Boehner, they look almost identical in terms of discretionary spending savings, Reid's only theoretically saves more money because it includes savings from getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan.  The only real difference between the two plans is that Reid's plan would give Obama cover until after the next election (at least one would hope but you never know, Obama spends money like a drunken sailor) while Boehner's would require us to do this all over again in several months.  So if the Boehner plan actually does pass the House today (a big if), given how similar the Senate bill is, does it make sense to kill it just over timing?  Given how similar the two bills are can they really call the Republicans radical crazies and have anyone but Rachel Maddow and the rest of the MSNBC whack jobs believe them?  The Republicans can sound very reasonable by saying, "hey, we just didn't want to write a blank check for $2.7 trillion, equivalent to an entire year's worth of Federal receipts."

However, if the Boehner bill doesn't pass the House, then I would say we should just bite the bullet, accept the Reid plan and call it a day.  Yes, there will be some angry constituents out there and Bachmann will be able to make a few great speeches on how the GOP establishment sold out, but in the end the GOP would have won a major victory for the American people over the Obama's, Pelosi's and Reid's of the world. Remember, they had wanted an automatic debt limit increase without any conditions and then said they would only accept cuts if they increased taxes.  To get cuts without tax increases would be a nice victory and would set the stage for a GOP sweep in 2012, which is the ultimate goal.  We are in a marathon, not a sprint, there is no reason to use all of our ammo in this lap.  We have lots more to go.