Reply #5: I'm not so sure

[TomClash]

The Bush tax cuts won't be the central issue if they are not repealed. The $4 trillion deficit cut over ten years is a gambit. He sacrifices some social services cuts for repeal of some or all of the Bush tax cuts, big deficit cuts and an end to this debt ceiling nonsense. But if Boehner/McConnell and their cohorts don't accept and the Government shuts down, most swing voters won't blame the President because he compromised and the Republicans didn't.

Still, all such plans are a short term economic negatives.