The sure sign that John Boehner didn’t mean to Sunday night attempt to walk it back:

“Raising taxes on any American, and especially small businesses, in a struggling economy is the exact wrong thing to do, a position shared by not only by my Republican colleagues, and several of my Democratic colleagues, but by a vast number of economists. “If the president is serious about job creation, there’s a clear way forward, and that’s for us to come together and pass legislation immediately that cuts spending to 2008 levels for the next year and stops all of the coming tax hikes by freezing all current tax rates for the next two years. Anything short of that may selfishly check a political box for the president, but it fails the American people. “Instead of resorting to tired old class warfare rhetoric, pitting one working American against another, the president and the Democratic leadership should start working with us this week to ensure a fair and open debate to pass legislation to cut spending and freeze tax rates without any further delay.”

OK, so does he not agree with his own statement from the morning, that he would vote for tax cuts on the first $250,000 of income “as a last resort”? Or is he counting that as a tax cut for every American, which (as luck would have it) it actually is?

This just sows confusion within the Republican ranks. From a narrative standpoint, his comments “altered the landscape” on the tax debate in the eyes of the media. And the White House quickly pounced. Robert Gibbs:

We welcome John Boehner’s change in position and support for the middle class tax cuts, but time will tell if his actions will be anything but continued support for the failed policies that got us into this mess.

So that’s the political fallout. On the policy, we’re going to see the tax cuts on the first $250,000 of income extended. While this has more of an impact as a percentage of income on the middle class, it has more of a real-dollar impact on the rich. So in case people are wondering how “middle class” tax cuts can cost more than the tax cuts on the high end, even though we’ve heard for years the true statement that 90% of the Bush tax cuts went to the wealthy, the answer would be the magic of marginal tax rates.

As far as “taking tax cuts off the table,” this just never works in an election. Democrats will keep saying that the Republicans want tax cuts for millionaires, and they’ll be right, and Republicans will keep saying the Democrats want to raise everyone’s taxes, and they’ll be wrong. Both sides are pretty locked into their arguments. The difference will be that Democrats can tout an accomplishment (one that adds $3 trillion to the budget deficit over 10 years, but alas), and Republicans can only chase a phantom.