Even Wall Street Journal Editorial Writers Understand This Basic Principle: When Radical Conservatives Change Something They Make It Worse

Conservatives Sabotaging the Politics of Debt Reduction in the House

The initial John Boehner (R, Oh), Speaker of the House, Deficit Reduction Plan had almost zero chance of being enacted into law.  Its killer clause was a requirement that in six to eight months another debt ceiling vote would have to be taken.  This would have totally defeated one purpose of a large increase in the debt ceiling, namely to calm markets and at least give the possibility of creating an environment where economic growth could take place.

Radical conservatives forced Mr. Boehner to amend his plan to make a second debt increase contingent upon both the House and Senate passing a Balanced Budget Amendment.  This took the very small possibility that the initial Boehner plan could pass the Senate and turned it into an impossibility.  This result was so obvious that even the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal recognized this folly.

. . . after John McCain quoted our July 27 "tea party hobbits" line on the Senate floor. Senator (sic) Sharron Angle responded that "it is the hobbits who are the heroes and save the land." Well, okay, but our point was that there's no such thing as a hobbit. Passing a balanced budget amendment this year is a similar fantasy. Yet outfits like the Club for Growth used the amendment as an excuse to flip from opposing the Boehner plan to supporting it. Maybe it should be the Club for Futile Fiscal Gestures.

The hobbits  in their natural habitat (really)

The whole process illustrates the utter insanity that passes for economic and fiscal policy initiatives by the Conservative movement.  It also illustrates, and probably in a painful way for Ms. Angle, that there are no hobbits.

Sorry Ms. Angle, those hobbits in the movie were really actors, small actors, but actors all the same.