So much for what seemed like a big win for the GOP on entitlements — a win that was potentially so big that President Barack Obama had heard angry rumblings from his party’s base more than once and potentially faced a revolt from liberals. Some analysts had even suggested that if Obama made the compromise with GOPers it would accentuate divisions within the Democratic Party and even kill the party. But nudged on by a no-compromise Tea Party and bolstered by the party’s talk radio political culture, GOPers once again ignored the wise political instincts of House Speaker John Boehner, dug in their heels — and it wound up with Obama taking a long sought Republican goal completely off the table.

Obama is providing yet another sign that he’s concluded working with Republicans on major reform is not realistically possible since the Tea Party pours the GOP’s political tea that’s put on the White House table: you like the flavor, or you don’t drink.

The White House doesn’t like the flavor. The result? Obama will propose a budget that calls for an end to trying to reboot the economy with austerity — an approach that hasn’t done wonders for Europe — and instead will propose billions of dollars in new spending, and remove his offer to trim parts of Social Security to get the national debt down.

It’s a victory for Democrats who didn’t want compromise, a defeat for Republicans who feel the Tea Party’s no compromise stand and power within the Republican Party is destroying the party’s prospect for winning national elections, and a defeat for the country’s political center which wants to see both parties give a little and take a little for the good of the nation.

It’s a squandered opportunity. The GOP had a good hand but, shoved on by the Tea Party, held out to try and get a better one and got a losing hand. Talking Point Memo notes:

In 2012, due to a mix of policy judgments and election-year considerations, Obama backed off his offer to raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67. And on Thursday, he came full circle by also abandoning his proposal to slow the rate of inflation for Social Security benefits via a policy known as Chained CPI, which he included in his budget unveiled one year ago this month.

The backtracking reflects a dramatic shift since 2011, when Democrats, spooked by their thrashing in mid-term elections, were willing to slash their party’s most cherished achievements.

“The days of terrible grand bargains are gone for the foreseeable future,” said an aide to a progressive Democratic senator.

Conservatives forced Boehner to squander a golden opportunity when it was within reach, in favor of a risky bet that they could stonewall Obama then, run the table in the 2012 elections, and get what they wanted without having to make significant compromises. They lost, and now there’s not much left to do but go on the attack.

“This reaffirms what has become all too apparent: the president has no interest in doing anything, even modest, to address our looming debt crisis,” Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Boehner, said after TPM reported Obama’s decision to drop Chained CPI from his upcoming budget proposal. “With three years left in office, it seems the president is already throwing in the towel.”

Democrats and liberal activists, who were mobilizing against Social Security cuts ahead of the 2014 elections, were thrilled. “The President has got the congressional Democrats’ backs and has them in the front of his mind,” said a Senate Democratic leadership aide.

So, what happens next? Few expect Congress to pass major bills before the November elections. And no matter the results, Obama insists he won’t budge on entitlements without tax revenues in the mix, and Republicans are highly unlikely to go there. The GOP understands the difficulty of trimming entitlement benefits — their push to partially privatize Social Security went nowhere in 2005 even though they controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress.

What has been evident for months is that Obama has been losing his patience: his pointed remarks about Fox News, his comments about how he’s portrayed by critics, the Ted Cruz instigated government shut down, rejection and check mating of his political agenda, and spurned attempts to reach agreements. Republicans flip that around and say it’s Obama to blame but Obama’s perception on whose to blame is echoed by public perceptions in polls. The Week’s Terbush says Obama has simply decided he’s going to go it alone:

President Obama is going solo.

Having seen his ambitious agenda run aground against Republican recalcitrance, Obama is pivoting to a more unilateral approach to achieve his goals. And when he must go through Congress, Obama has shown he’s willing to eschew bipartisanship when it seems like an impossibility.

On Wednesday, the White House released some early details of the president’s 2015 budget proposal, which is due out next month. The biggest news is that the budget will propose $56 billion in new spending, while dropping a key compromise that would result in smaller Social Security benefits. The latter idea, known as “chained CPI,” would alter how the government calculates benefits increases for social welfare programs, and it’s generally opposed by liberals. (You can read our more thorough explainer on chained CPI here.)

That might sound like an insignificant bit of wonky gibberish, but it’s actually a sharp reversal. Obama proposed chained CPI in his budget last year, hoping it would convince Republicans to compromise on revenue increases. It was an attempt at striking that mythical “grand bargain” Obama and congressional Republicans have been talking about for years. But Republicans vehemently opposed any new tax revenue, and now Obama is no longer even offering the chained CPI carrot.

“Unfortunately, Republicans refused to even consider the possibility of raising some revenue,” said Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman. “That is an unfortunate policy choice that Republicans themselves have made.”

Of course Republicans won’t see it this way and even many of those who know it’s this way will insist it isn’t. 21st century politics operates on repeating a political mantra over and over then getting partisans through any communication channels that are available to repeat it over and over, and then repeat it in political ads.

But the bottom line is this: Republicans had a golden opportunity to get what they wanted — and couldn’t take yes for an answer.

graphic via shutterstock.com

JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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