There's nothing good about the Boehner plan falling apart. Make no mistake, it sucked and the Senate would have killed it, and, if they wouldn't have killed it, the president would've vetoed it. Nevertheless, nothing else coming out of the House will look as relatively "good" as the Boehner plan.
Which is to say that nothing coming out of the House will pass the Senate or be signed by the White House at this point. Nothing.
And that means no deal, and we default on the debt at midnight Tuesday night -- unless the president uses the 14th Amendment or the tea party acquiesces and allows the House Republicans to pass the one-page debt ceiling increase they always pass at the last minute with no strings attached. The former might happen, but the latter will never happen.
The Republicans have utterly screwed themselves by pandering to the tea party and attempting to sabotage the president. In the meantime, and most importantly, they've also screwed the rest of us. I'm afraid that even if they come up with a deal, the process has been so bastardized due to the inability of the Republicans to act like grownups about our debt obligations and the broader economy, there's going to be a downgrade in our credit. And that means mass hysteria.
Good job, Republicans. Oh, and guess what -- while we're all slogging our way through the impending second Republican recession, I can assure you, there will be millions of us spending our remaining free time pinning this entire thing on the pasty white foreheads of every last member of the Republican Party. Bet on it.