Will The Egg-On-Face Factor Lead To An Economic Calamity?

Your quotes of the day:

“Of course, it’s dangerous,” a House Republican close to Boehner said of the politics of a government default. “But it’s dangerous for everybody, especially the president. At the end of the day, [Obama] will have to give in.”

“Who has egg on their face if there is a sovereign debt crisis, House Republicans or the president?” asked another senior GOP lawmaker.

This is, incidentally, why it was a mistake of the White House and Congressional Democrats to get dragged into a negotiation in the first place. That said, the evidence from political science does appear to suggest that if Republican intransigence destroys the American economy, that the voters will respond to this by punishing the incumbent President and electing a Republican. Obviously the models on which that conclusion is based don’t include a scenario in which out-party irresponsibility leads to sovereign default. No model is better than the parameters in which it’s based, and a sovereign default could easily be a model-busting occurrence. Still, it seems like at least one “House Republican close to Boehner” thinks this isn’t the case and the president will get most of the blame for a default. That’s a dangerous case of power without responsibility.