How the Debt Committee Could Turn Republican Against Republican

tnr.com — Grover Norquist is always filled with triumphalist theories, and his book elucidates one favorite Norquist claim, that shrinking revenue will turn the Democratic coalition against itself in a cannibalistic orgy. The debt ceiling bill fulfilled the right-wing demand that absolutely not one penny of extra revenue be raised, and therefore contains significant defense cuts. In other words, the members of the conservative coalition looked around and decided to eat the defense hawks. The dynamic is going to get really interesting in the fall. That's when phase two begins. A bipartisan committee is tasked with reducing the deficit by $1.8 trillion, and if the committee's plan fails, huge automatic cuts to Medicare providers and defense will go into effect.

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