Republicans coming around to thinking Trump's deal with Democrats on debt ceiling is not bad

Washington Examiner:
President Trump shocked and angered Republicans on Wednesday by agreeing with Democrats on a bill to suspend the debt ceiling for three months, but by Thursday, Republican lawmakers and aides were acknowledging that Trump's plan was better for Republicans than the plan put forward by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Many Republicans weren't all that happy with either proposal. Ryan was proposing an 18-month suspension of the debt ceiling that would have let the government keep borrowing as much as it needed, and said the long time frame was needed to provide for market stability.

But Democrats said they could only agree to a three-month suspension since they wanted leverage more immediately for other issues they want to pursue in the coming weeks. Trump's decision to take the Democratic plan was seen by some as a betrayal of Republicans, and a sign Trump was abandoning the GOP on a key legislative package.

After the dust settled, however, Republican lawmakers and aides made it clear they saw the three-month plan as a slight improvement over Ryan's plan.

The reason was simple.

Neither plan involved a commitment to new spending cuts as a condition for allowing more government borrowing, something many conservatives wanted to see. With that key piece lacking, many Republicans preferred a shorter term agreement for the same reason Democrats did: it will let them try much sooner to leverage the next debt ceiling fight for their own policy prescription, in this case, spending cuts.

A source with the conservative House Freedom Caucus said that group has not met to discuss the plan that Trump settled on Wednesday. But this source said many members of the group seem to agree that both deals were bad because neither included a commitment to spending cuts.

"Lots of members think the three-month deal is bad, but so is an 18-month deal," this source said. But the source added that the shorter timeframe will at least let them try again soon, and in that way, is better for Republicans.
...
I suspect Trump isn't sure that the Senate would have been able to reach a deal on the longer term based on their own failure to repeal and replace Obamacare which was a much bigger deal for Republicans. It looked like another dreary fight to me that the Senate GOP was going to lose.

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