ESCAPE HATCH: Dems could join with GOP realists to end crises

[warrenswil]

WITH THE GOVERNMENT shutdown entering its third week and the debt-ceiling crisis 48 hours away, time is running out to avert a global calamity.
But, there is a way out. It’s hiding in plain sight. We call it the “escape hatch” in an analysis this morning.
GOP radicals won’t budge but default threat may move centrists
One has to be a bit of a wonk to figure it out, but that’s exactly what Princeton Prof. Paul Krugman is – he’s also a columnist at The New York Times.
It requires knowledge of the arcana of the rules under which the House of Representatives – and the U.S. Senate – operate. It also involves knowing the radicals in the House GOP
caucus have maneuvered themselves into a hole and they just keep on digging.
A coalition of “realist Republicans” and all the Democrats in the House might just get the entire world out of the jam we are in.
If just 18 GOP centrists join with Democrats, they could do an end run around the Tea Party and vote to reopen the government, avoid default.
On Monday, Krugman outlined the “escape hatch” in his column titled The Dixiecrat Solution
Citing the historical example of when minority Republicans allied with Southern Democrats to ram conservative bills through Congress, Krugman suggests the time is now for the reverse.

“There is, however, another solution, and everyone knows what it is. Call it Dixiecrats in reverse,” he wrote.

Ah! The elegance of it.
Do an end run around the speaker and the Tea Party. Wed the entire Democratic Party with those Republicans not afraid of the radical right and presto!
Crisis over. For now.

[BlueStreak]

1. This could have happened at any stage. It is all on Boehner.