The lessons of John Boehner's latest failure

House Republicans cave once again on the debt ceiling, and suddenly Democrats have all the leverage

Boehner
(Image credit: (Mark Wilson/Getty Images))

A last-ditch plan by House Republicans to extract concessions in exchange for hiking the nation's borrowing limit fell apart Tuesday morning, with conservative holdouts leaving the party short of the necessary votes.

That the GOP caved isn't as surprising as the speed with which it did, just a few minutes into a morning conference meeting. All along, it was clear Republicans had no leverage with their debt-ceiling threats; they'd caved before, and public opinion was firmly against more debt limit extortion.

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Jon Terbush

Jon Terbush is an associate editor at TheWeek.com covering politics, sports, and other things he finds interesting. He has previously written for Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, and Business Insider.