The Republican Party has apparently decided that they really want to have a big public fight with President Obama over whether or not employers with connections to religious institutions should be required to provide birth control as part of their employee’s health insurance. The GOP is acting like they believe the issue is a political winner for them, while the Administration is seeking a compromise to avoid the fight.

President Obama’s deficit speech may be viewed as the moment the Obama administration fully pivots away from trying to reach bipartisan compromise, to instead focusing on winning 2012 by bashing the Republican Party.

It is unfortunate that as our whole political system comes unhinged due to this current fight, so little has been done to explain to regular people what a preposterous and unnecessary debate this really is.

To maintain his role as head of the Republican caucus Speaker John Boehner can’t cut just any old deal with the Democrats, at least not now that so much rides on this particular fight. Even if Boehner and most of the Republican leadership want to cut a deal, and that isn’t a given, the only way Boehner can sell a deal to his caucus is to claim he pushed the Democrats to the edge and got the best deal they can possibly hope for. Yet with the Democrats sweetening the pot with new concessions almost daily, there is no way the Republican caucus would think they have reached the Democrats’ final offer.

The truly historic importance of what is happen right now can’t be repeated enough. It is a Democratic President who is the driving force now behind cutting Medicare and Social Security. It is a Democratic President who feels that deficit reduction during a recession and keeping tax rates near historic laws are both much more important policy goals than protecting Social Security and Medicare Benefits.

If the health care law really is a starter home, then what President Obama has been doing is effectively letting the Republicans rip out the house’s copper plumbing to be sold as scrap for pennies on the dollar.