via CNN Money

Paul Ryan defused the likelihood of a government shutdown in January with the bipartisan budget deal he helped strike last week. But on Sunday he did nothing to tamp down the possibility of a showdown over the debt ceiling.

The House Budget chairman said that Republicans will gather after the holidays “and discuss exactly what it is we’re going to try and get” for voting to suspend or raise the legal limit on federal borrowing.

You can stop laughing now.

I can answer what they are going to try and get. Nothing. Bupkis. Diddly squat. **** all.

After throwing away the hard-fought success that was the sequester for fairly dust and unicorn farts twenty years down the road, Paul Ryan and the House GOP leadership is now trying to convince us that they will TOTALLY GO TO THE MATTRESSES ON THE DEBT CEILING.

We all know that isn’t going to happen.

When all the House had to do was pass a clean continuing resolution to lock in actual cuts in federal spending it chose, instead, to bail on fiscal sanity and authorize a new binge of federal spending. (If you want the answer to that mystery, see who is funding the GOP leadership’s war on conservatives.)

This is just a successor to the three dozen meaningless Potemkin votes that have been taken on defunding Obamacare. It is an empty gesture that the GOP leadership throws our way to convince us they are doing something when, in fact, they are perfectly happy with Obamacare in place because it lets them fundraise off rubes and yokels who think they actually care about either Obamacare or spending.

You don’t need to be David Mamet to write this play. The GOP will offer some token bluster. They will accept new spending. They will demand more cuts 30, 40, 50 years in the future (somewhere far enough out there that they don’t have to worry about being part of that fight). They will whine and mewl about the nation’s credit rating. Then they will do what they do best: fold like a cheap suit.