OK, it’s over (or will be unless the Senate surprises everyone), time to move on — but first, just two quick points about what we can learn from the debt ceiling clash.
1. A lot of people are complaining that the Washington politicians didn’t solve the problem until the last minute. That completely misses the point — it was not possible to solve it until the last minute. Unless you are actually at the deadline, you have no reason to give up the things that are important to you. It is only the reality of impending catastrophe that will get you to do that. We can see the same thing with the federal budget. In the 1960s, the fiscal year started July 1, and Congress never passed the budget on time – so they moved the fiscal year back 3 months, to October 1. Congress still never passes the budget on time, because they need to be right at the deadline in order to compromise.
2. It follows that you win these disputes by being willing to go closer to the deadline than the other side. The Tea Party was willing to kill a deal on Friday; not enough progressives were willing to kill a deal later than that. So the Tea Party got a lot of what they wanted, while progressives got very little.
OK, enough of that (though of course your comments will be welcome). Time to move on to other issues! (Unless, again, the Senate surprises us all!)