Steve Benen: Marking the end of debt-ceiling extortion

[Playinghardball]

Exactly three weeks ago today, House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) made a straightforward declaration: “A ‘clean’ debt limit increase simply won’t pass in the House.”

So much for that idea. Late yesterday, the House did, in fact, raise the debt limit through March 2015. After several weeks in which Republican lawmakers said they would block an increase unless Democrats paid some kind of ransom, the GOP-led chamber threw in the towel, allowed the increase to pass with mainly Democratic support, and quickly left town for two weeks.

There’s no shortage of interesting angles to this entirely predictable fiasco….

More here: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/marking-the-end-debt-ceiling-extortion

Found on the Obama Diary