No sooner did the White House leak details of its new(ish) corporate tax reform plan than John Boehner and Mitch McConnell very publicly trashed it, which led to a familiar and predictable dust up wherein Democrats condemned Republicans for reflexively opposing things President Obama supports and Republicans complained (apparently falsely) that the White House didn’t contact them about the plan before promoting it in the press.

These are all key ingredients for substance-free paint by numbers news stories about Washington dysfunction, or picayune laments that the proposal has nothing to do with the deficit. Tastes vary.

But so long as we’re approaching this story from a political rather than substantive vantage point, I’d just say all of the point-scoring going on between the White House and GOP leaders is a big distraction. Read More