There have been many words used to describe the Republican party’s actions as of late: Sedition. Extortion. Dangerous. Insane. Scorched earth policies. Extremist.
The reality is that what we are seeing today is the inevitable conclusion when you elect people who are either detached from reality or are so beholden to wealthy interests that they stop working towards the interests of the people they pretend to be speaking on behalf of. Unfortunately – in today’s media environment … the average every day Republican is also calling for a government shutdown and NOT raising the debt ceiling. The “experts” on Fox News and voices in the conservative media have reassured Republican voters that it’s not really a government shutdown … it’s a “slimdown” and that there is no way that the government can default on their debt unless President Obama chooses to.
THEY ARE LYING. This viewpoint comes from the right wing media and elected Republican officials alike.
The average everyday person doesn’t really understand what’s going on and they certainly won’t know who to blame if everything goes up in flames. The common mistake is to repeat the notion that “they’re all to blame”, “they’re all responsible”. That’s a false equivalency and it’s really just the lazy person’s way of saying they have no fucking idea what they’re talking about. No matter what poll you look at – 35% to 50% of Americans blame the Democratic party for the government shutdown impasse. That’s anywhere from 100 to 150 million people. And the law requires safety warnings on products so we can’t let Darwin’s law work itself out. That’s a LOT of misinformed, uninformed people and it’s frightening.
Some polls show that Americans are holding the GOP responsible for this extreme behavior and others are showing that they’re more evenly distributing blame. The only way to stop this madness is to vote these irresponsible charlatans out of office because “hanging them high” isn’t an option no matter how ridiculous these folks are. President Obama CAN NOT give in to the demands of this extreme party under any circumstances. I am a firm believer in negotiating and compromise; however at the core of it – the Republican party isn’t really negotiating … they’re hostage taking. They are using the threat of an economic default and tremendous damage to the world economy as their point of leverage. They’re putting a gun to Obama’s head. And he can’t afford to negotiate with terrorist tactics.
By giving in to the demands of the American Taliban – he will set a precedent that in order to simply operate government … it will require significant concessions from the Democratic party in return for NOTHING other than to have a government that operates. The Republican party has passed several smaller bills to fully fund various departments like the Center for Disease Control or veterans etc; they do this to appear reasonable and wiling to compromise. But this is simply a tactic to shut down the parts of the government that the Republicans do not want to fund but will impact millions and millions of Americans. To allow Republicans to fund government programs in a piecemeal process is not only no way to fund a government but it would also leave the Republican party getting EVERYTHING they wanted. That’s not compromise.
And President Obama can’t allow a minority of a minority party that controls only 1/3 of Congress despite having fewer votes to completely run ramshod over the interests of the majority of Americans. We may have to resolve this via a dual like Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.
As Jim Cramer from CNBC said this Morning Joe – a failure to raise the debt ceiling would leave the government failing to pay anywhere from $50 to $100 billion in bills in NOVEMBER alone, would destroy capital markets along with the world economy, would precipitate a transfer from the U.S. being the world’s reserve currency and would lead to a recession within 2 to 6 months.
Republican after Republican continues to minimize the impact of a failure to raise the debt ceiling. Senator Tom Coburn said the government will not default if they fail to raise the debt ceiling (source); many Republicans are espousing that view point. Except this is bullshit. If the U.S. government give a preference to the needs of the banker class and foreign governments who own U.S. treasuries (along with the SSA and various mutual funds etc) – then the government will fail to fully pay either Social Security, Medicare and/or the military.
Payments to recipients of Social Security and Medicare are contractual obligations of the U.S. government since the government is simply following through on it’s commitment via a mechanism like an annuity or insurance company. Any failure to comply with the terms of Social Security which just operates as an annuity – a financial instrument and contract … would be DEFAULT. Standard and Poors and other various ratings agencies would downgrade America’s debt and our borrowing costs would go up. That means it would cost more to borrow more money simply because of a manufactured crisis spurred by ignorance, stupidity and ideology.
The Republican party is filled with a bunch of anarchists intending to burn the house down. As this GOP Rep was quoted in the NY Times HERE: “Economists, what have they been doing? They make all sorts of predictions,” said Representative John Fleming, Republican of Louisiana. “Many times they’re wrong, so I don’t think we should run government based on economists’ predictions.”
Seriously – WHAT THE FUCK? There is only one answer. Americans need to rise up and vote against every single Republican – no matter what. Every time you vote for a Republican – you’re giving support to a party that would irreparably damage the American economy leading to millions and millions being out of work. Whatever issues I have with the Democratic party – they pale in comparison to the actions of the Republican party. We need to kill this cancer. Vote against every single Republican.
The Political Cycle 