Obama Rescinds Offer To Cut Medicare, Social Security As Tea Party Insists On No New Taxes

The great schism in the Republican Party has led to the abandonment of the so-called Grand Bargain. Obama withdrew his offer to cut Social Security and Medicare in response to the Tea Party's refusal to offer $800 billion in new tax revenues.

It should never have come to this: Obama should never have put the laws best loved by nearly all Americans (even Republicans not wearing tea bags) on the table in the first place. But he did, in hopes of getting new tax revenues from the GOP. But the Tea Party wing of the increasingly extreme Republican Party wouldn't hear of it. And so we owe thanks, to Obama for finally figuring out reality, and to the Tea Party for being so goddamned stupid as to think the whole world is going to cave to their political desires with no concessions on their part.