I have been typing this in comments various places. I think that Obama does not really want a grand compromise and just wants to convince the very serious villager people that he tried to give them what they want and Republicans wouldn't let him.

I think this hypothesis gets some support from the agreed fact that Obama's proposed tax increases changed from 800 B to 1.2 T from Thursday to Friday. The administration's explanation is based on the gang of six and getting to 50 in the Senate and stuff. I like the think the issue was that there was a risk of Boehner saying yes.

It is true that Boehner was making crazy proposals such as "Boehner, for instance, wanted further cuts to Medicaid, a trigger that would repeal the individual mandate and the Independent Payment Advisory Board if the entitlement cuts didn’t come through"

There is no possible justification for the proposed elimination of the new powers of the IPAB. The declared aim is to cut entitlement spending. The new more powerful IPAB would do that. The deal is that if the Democrats don't agree to new cuts, then the old cuts will be repealed.

The Republicans who campaigned as defenders of Medicare and now present themselves as defunders of Medicare can't manage to avoid contradicting themselves. But I would have thought that they would manage to avoid contradicting themselves in one proposal.

It is totally clear that the house Republican caucus views the question of us vs them -- they couldn't make it clearer that they don't give a damn about the deficit or health care or anything and are against anything Obama supports.