Why the Republicans Are Boxed In

It's Paul's idea," House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told ABC News in an Apr. 25 interview. "Other people have other ideas." If you get the sense that John is distancing himself from Paul, don't blame Yoko. Boehner is worried that Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare—which passed the House with all but four Republican votes on Apr. 15—isn't playing so well at town hall meetings. The speaker is in a box. His party easily took the House last fall, but the Senate and the Presidency are still in Democrats' hands. And just when the big debate on the deficit is ripening, President Obama, fresh from his skillful dispatch of Osama bin Laden, is a Beatle again.

Despite pleas from Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and emissaries from Wall Street, Republicans seem determined to play chicken with Obama on the debt ceiling, which must be raised by July 8 or the U.S. will face default. They are demanding that big chunks of the Ryan plan be adopted or, at a minimum, that "triggers" be enacted that would impose huge spending cuts down the road. Of course, unless Republicans approve some revenue increases (like getting hugely profitable oil companies off the public dole), they won't get agreement from the President.