Laura Ingraham has been a big Tea Party supporter and proponent of the position that Republicans should not pass a debt ceiling bill that is a short-term/mini-deal or else it should be viewed as unserious.
Talking to Newsmax on July 6th, she said this:
Conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham tells Newsmax that Republicans should stand firm against a “mini-deal” that would raise the debt ceiling with only “cosmetic cuts” in federal spending.
She also says Washington legislators who would consider such a settlement show that they are “completely unserious” about dealing with the federal debt and “saving America.”
As much as I disliked Obama's Grand Bargain idea, it supposedly cut $4 trillion out of the deficit. That's not small potatoes. Biden's group also had massive spending cuts along with closing some tax loopholes and Harry Reid's plan, which should be considered a small deal because it only lasts until after the 2012 election, is a spending-cuts-only bill.
Who has the worst mini deal of all? John Boehner. Guess which bill Laura Ingraham is supporting now after vehemently opposing a mini-deal? John Boehner's. She said so while she was guest-hosting Bill O'Reilly's show yesterday. Bill is in LA doing PR and wound up calling in to give his analysis since Boehner's bill couldn't even get voted on Thursday. And what did Bill do? He called out Ingraham because she has been on The Factor toeing the Tea Party line all along. But now she's falling in line with the rest of the GOP hierarchy. (Rough transcript)
O'Reilly: First of all it was a good interview with the guys up top, but I noticed a little tone change from your posture last week where I was anchoring and you were the interview subject and now you're the anchor..ummm. I saw a little softening of the hard line position. Did I pick that up wrong? Have you changed a little bit?
Ingraham: No, no I don't think you're picking it up correctly. My point now is that they've gotten the best deal they can get with the leverage that they've exercised. If the Tea Party just agreed to several days ago which was my point last week then they wouldn't have gotten the deal right now.
O'Reilly: You think that now the Tea Party should say, OK, we're going to go with Boehner.
Ingraham: I think the Tea Party, yes, absolutely because this is the best deal they're going to get
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Can you trust anything she says? That's not what Ingraham's been saying all along. Laura grilled Rep. Steve King later in the show for saying that the Tea Party should wait until after the deadline has passed so then the ,arkets can collapse and they can get the Cup, Cap and Balanced budget amendment passed easily. She was very hostile to that idea, literally calling him crazy if he thought that was remotely realistic.
