In his just-concluded news conference, I asked House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to respond to the criticism among conservatives that if Republicans were to hold out past Aug. 2, they'd be in a better position to negotiate a deal.
“I’ve heard that comment made from some of my colleagues — I disagree,” he said. “With a fragile economy that we have, the last thing we need to do is be playing around with Aug. 2 and the unknown.”
Assuming some deal gets struck to raise the debt llimit, this issue is sure to linger. Conservative critics will insist that Republicans could have done better had they stood firm.
In my column today, I explained why I thought that view was mistaken.
