Tea Party Economics as Debt Ceiling Deadline Nears

After cutting short its traditional July 4th recess, the Senate returned to Washington today in order to work on a debt-ceiling deal. But with no meetings under way, the big news was the New York Times' conservative columnist David Brooks' scathing indictment of Republicans for failing to accept "the logic of compromise," lacking a "sense of moral decency" and risking economic disaster. Megan McArdle is business and economics editor for The Atlantic magazine.