Defending Defense: How the GOP Can Escape the Budget Box Canyon

Defending Defense: How the GOP Can Escape the Budget Box Canyon

Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio wowed the Beltway conservatives last night, which is a little bit like the British cheering a successful evacuation from Dunkirk. The GOP indeed lives to fight another day, and that day will be here quickly as 2014’s candidates are already declaring –Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito for the United States Senate in West Virginia and former Governor Michael Rounds for the same in South Dakota.

Which weights the negotiations over the fiscal cliff with a great deal of political as well as economic significance. The parties purport to care about the latter, but they are...