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Thursday, July 28. 2011
Spinning Eyeballs
Saw something on Facebook yesterday that was pretty funny: “Raising the Dept ceiling is kind of like increasing Blood Alcohol levels to solve Drunk Driving.”Okay, that’s funny. I’m sure with all the people posting that comment on Facebook it’s gotten a lot of laughs. Sadly though, there are more than a few people who actually think it’s an accurate description of raising the debt ceiling.
Since the days of Dwight D. Eisenhower (at least) our government has been raising the debt ceiling to pay for the debts “we” have incurred as a result of government functions. We can have an entirely different debate on those government functions and bringing down spending and increasing revenues, but the debt ceiling is all about paying for the bills we have already created.
The president with the most debt limit increases to his credit would be President Ronald Reagan. In his eight-year term he raised it 18 times.
George W. Bush (43) raised it seven times with near unanimous support from the Republicans controlling Congress. And he took a quarter trillion dollar surplus and turned it into a 12 trillion dollar deficit.President Bill Clinton raised it four times. In fact, our government has never failed to raise the debt ceiling — ever. We, as a nation, have always been responsible and paid our debts.
Now, with a Democrat in the White House — more accurately, because there is a Democrat in the White House (and a Black one at that) — the Republicans have all of a sudden become deficit hawks and have decided to not honor our debts by not raising the debt ceiling.
A band of ignorant Teabagger Congressmen and women who are holding their party by the short hairs are determined to hurl the nation over the cliff into default. They are advocating we not pay our bills. These are the same people who say our government should operate within its budget just like responsible families do. Yeah, well, responsible families, when they run up their debts, like credit cards, car loans and mortgages, also pay their bills.
Just heard this on Hardball with Chris Matthews, a description of Republicans currently in Congress, from former Reagan budget advisor Bruce Bartlett: “Stupid, crazy, craven or cowards” afraid of the tea party.
Bartlett also said, providing the numbers to back it up, that 40% of the debt is due to the Bush tax cuts. But Bartlett is a Republican! Apparently he didn’t get any of the Kool-Aid. Watch the video clip at the bottom of this screed. Bartlett explains how Bush (43) turned the surplus into a huge deficit.What we have in Congress now are people who think, or at least want “us” to believe, there will be no great consequences should the debt ceiling not be raised. They don’t take as serious the fact that the bond rating companies, usually staunch allies of the Republican Party, guarantee the U.S. bond rating will be lowered and that, every economist agrees, will raise taxes on everyone in the form of increased interest on every form of credit, from credit cards to home mortgages.
That, every economist agrees, will cause some companies to lay off employees because other companies won’t be able to afford doing any business at all. They will close their doors.
The usual rightwing nutbags are out there telling anyone who will listen killing the U.S. credit rating won’t have any seriously bad effects: Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin chief among them. Then there is the Illinois freshman congressman, Joe Walsh (not the legendary guitarist) who called the president a liar in a Youtube video and claimed, against all evidence to the contrary, nothing bad will happen if the debt ceiling isn’t increased.
And, despite the evidence to the contrary, much of it felt by the entire nation three years ago, Walsh insists it is President Obama who “bankrupted this nation and destroyed job creation.” Congressman, you are full of it. By the time Obama took the oath of office in January 2009, the previous administration had run up the debt to 12 trillion dollars, as noted earlier, and the nation had been losing half a million jobs per month for over a year. But Walsh is just plain crazy. Listening to him in those videos on Youtube will make your eyeballs spin. Seriously Congressman Walsh, even some Republicans admit Obama inherited a bad recession, including a massive hemorrhaging of jobs.
Congressman Walsh’s ideas aren’t even the craziest. That distinction belongs to Georgia Republican and Teabagger, Paul Broun who says we should lower the debt ceiling.
Let’s not only drive this puppy off a cliff, let’s do it even faster!
Here’s the rub: should the U.S. default, our economy will fall deeper into a recession as more people lose their jobs. This, some Republicans hope, will make the president look bad and therefore easier to beat in the 2012 general election. Really? Are there people so cynical they are willing and eager to cause yet another financial meltdown just in order to win an election?
A couple weeks ago Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell said something very prescient. He offered a plan that would separate the debt ceiling bill from any budget negotiations just so the debt ceiling could be raised. He said that if the nation defaulted it would look bad for Republicans and the GOP would pay the price come November 2012. But, Republicans aren’t listening to McConnell or Speaker of the House John Boehner and many of these Tea Party people consider McConnell and Boehner to be part of the problem in Washington.Getting back to what started today’s rant, here is an accurate analogy for raising the debt ceiling: “Raising the debt ceiling is exactly like telling the bank you are going to pay for all the charges you’ve rung up on that credit card for the past 10 years.”
Ronald Reagan put it this way in 1987 when Democrats were playing politics with the debt ceiling: “Congress consistently brings the Government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans’ benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar. The United States has a special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations. It means we have a well-earned reputation for reliability and credibility – two things that set us apart from much of the world.”
Who knew I would one day be agreeing with Ronald Reagan! That just blew my mind. Time to lie down and absorb that factoid, my eyeballs are spinning.
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