Whether House Republicans Fold or Not, Ted Cruz Looks to Be the Great Loser

At the end of 2012, after he had been safely ensconced in the White House for another four years, President Obama had a chance to put all of the budget wrangling to bed, for good. The Bush-era tax cuts -- passed as the Republican solution to the accumulating surpluses beginning in the last years of the Clinton presidency -- were set to expire at the end of 2012, and the president had a choice to make. He could make a budget deal with Congress to extend some or all of the tax cuts, or he could do...