McConnell about to wave surrender flag

How bad? Worse than you even feared. Under a pending Senate deal that's got Mitch McConnell pretty darn excited, there would be:

• No delay in ObamaCare
• No delay in the individual mandate
• No repeal of the medical device tax
• No new spending cuts
• No approval of the Keystone XL pipeline
• No change in the tax code

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So what would Republicans get? Only this: A requirement that Democrats actually verify people's eligibility for subsidies to insurance premiums under ObamaCare. This is not a change in the law. Subsidies are supposed to be means-tested but the Obama Administration announced earlier this year it would not require verification when people declared their income for the purpose of obtaining subsidies. It would just take them at their word. Under the proposed deal, they would have to check. That's McConnell's big victory. But wait. He had to give something away too. Unions have been demanding a one-year delay in an ObamaCare provision that charges a $63 per person fee on institutions that offer policies, and Obama wants to give it to them to stop their shouting over all the problems they suddenly realize ObamaCare is causing them. In order to get Reid to sign off on his capitulation, McConnell had to give Obama and the unions this concession. So how are House Republicans reacting to this? They are not thrilled, as our bestest buddies at Politico gleefully inform us:

The emerging deal would face a tough road in the House, where Boehner's leadership team, allies and rank-and-file lawmakers spent Monday saying that Reid and McConnell were crafting a crummy framework. The talk among House Republicans in the cloakroom and on the floor was that they would be asked to accept a clean debt limit and government funding bill -- in short, the concessions won by McConnell were nothing to crow about. One House Republican said they would be lucky to find 20 GOP lawmakers willing to vote for this proposal. McConnell, however, is preparing to make a pitch to his conference that Republicans would get plenty out of the deal.

I can't wait to see how McConnell would sell that. Get ready, of course, for everyone in Washington to blame Ted Cruz for all this. If only he hadn't insisted on having this defunding fight, we never would have had the shutdown, we never would have had the debt ceiling fight, and Republicans wouldn't be looking at sinking poll numbers the ObamaCare rollout fiasco is buried by all the shutdown news. That's the narrative. Nonsense. For one thing, Ted Cruz is a freshman senator who is part of the minority party in his chamber. If McConnell and Boehner didn't want to have this fight, they can't claim they were forced to do so by Ted Cruz. The problem here is that Republicans decided to go ahead and pick this fight when they weren't prepared to fight to win. If the Republican House and Senate caucuses consisted of nothing but people like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Rand Paul, you would have not only seen unity and determination, you would have seen real leadership and effective messaging about why this was happening and what kinds of policy changes were necessary and worth this fight. Instead, Boehner and McConnell grudgingly took this confrontation on without really believing in it, and without ever really making a clear case about what they wanted to accomplish or why. That's why you heard more whining about Obama refusing to negotiate than you heard about what Republicans wanted to accomplish for the nation. The rollout of ObamaCare has been a disaster, but even if it worked as intended, ObamaCare would be a disaster for the nation in terms of its economic impact, its effect on jobs and the way it changes health care in this nation. McConnell and Boehner let that get lost in all the shutdown drama because their hearts were never in this, and now McConnell is prepared to wave the white flag and let Obama and Reid walk all over him because all he really wants is just to see this thing be over. That's not the fault of Ted Cruz. If it had been up to him, Republicans would have really fought.