Washington Post, The Budget Deals of Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Obama, in One Chart, by Ezra Klein:

There are two ways to read the current stalemate in the debt-ceiling negotiations. There’s David Brooks’s take, which is that watching Republicans pass up “the deal of the century” should leave conservatives convinced there’s something wrong with the GOP. But you can also read it the opposite way: Democrats control the White House and the Senate, Obama is the most popular national political figure, a balanced approach to deficit reduction outpolls plans made entirely of spending cuts, and yet Democrats are still offering recalcitrant Republicans the deal of the century rather than taking to the ramparts. What’s wrong with them?

To put some numbers to this, I asked the fine folks over at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to help me break down the deficit-reduction deals passed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Republicans might be fools for passing on it, but if and when they finally say “yes,” a lot of Democrats are going to be wondering whether the Democrats were suckers for offering it.

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