For someone who allegedly makes a living teaching people about political science, I have a remarkably low level of interest in actual politics most of the time. I have occasional bursts of enthusiasm but for the most part I have no interest in the parts of governing that amount to elaborate mating dances. Frequent readers know, for example, that Supreme Court confirmations are just about the least interesting thing on Earth to me. Senate judiciary committee hearings are little more than a week of Senators mugging for the camera and trying to put together an appropriately "fiery" sounding speech until everyone gets bored and the nominee is inevitably confirmed anyway. Wake me when it's over.
This heavily hyped "showdown" over raising the debt ceiling is drifting into Totally Uninteresting territory before it even begins, and we collectively share the misfortune of having to sit through a few weeks of it anyway over the next few months.
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The orange one himself, John Boehner:
"I’ve made it pretty clear to them that as we get into next year, it’s pretty clear that Congress is going to have to deal with (the debt ceiling)," Mr. Boehner, who is slated to become House speaker in January, told reporters. "We’re going to have to deal with it as adults," he said, in what apparently are his most explicit comments to date. "Whether we like it or not, the federal government has obligations and we have obligations on our part."
Moron-in-chief Pete Sessions (R-TX):
"My sense is when you’re out spending wildly and then you’re willing to raise the debt limit, that’s a problem," Mr. Sesssions said. "When you are [coming in] with a comprehensive plan, including a budget that clearly lays out priorities and expectations of performance, then say you have to deal with what is there—[that] is a very responsible position…We have to have a discussion with our newest members that involves more of a plan…The United States must pay its bills.
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In other words, "Boy, all that crap sounded good during the election. Now grow the fuck up, children." Does anyone expect for a minute that the GOP, the quintessential party of the establishment if ever one existed, would default on our obligations and bring the banking and financial industries to complete ruin? Oh, some of them are serious. Michelle Bachmann is probably quite serious when she says she will vote against it. But so what? This is standard practice. The leadership cobbles together enough votes to pass it and then everyone else takes the political cover of voting against it. "Look!", the most vulnerable GOP freshmen will say in 2012, "I voted against it! The system is corrupt! I am but one man!"
Yawn. The only aspect of this that promises to offer any entertainment value is watching how much the Democrats give away for no good reason. This is essentially a big game of chicken – the GOP promising not to raise the ceiling without austerity, the Democrats daring them to default – and we already know who are the superior negotiators. Rather than saying, "Right, like you're actually going to do it" and digging in their heels, I'm sure the White House and Senate Democrats will be tripping over themselves to gut Social Security and Medicare every time Boehner pauses to take a breath…or perhaps to stifle his laughter.
Seriously, wake me when this nonsense is over. The GOP may be rife with lunatics, but it even more rife with people who take their marching orders from Wall Street.
John says:
The best part is how plenty of Republicans voted IN FAVOR of raising the debt ceiling — back when Bush was the man in the white house. Went from around $5 Trillion under Clinton to over $10 Trillion under Bush, and nobody was going nuts about "when you’re out spending wildly and then you’re willing to raise the debt limit, that’s a problem".
But of course, we'll get to listen to an endless parade of talk show hosts and callers being all outraged about "Them darn lib'ruls and their wild debt". And so it goes, year in and year out.
Iriestx says:
It's kabuki theater. Both parties want austerity & the debt ceiling raised. They're playing good cop/bad cop to make people feel there are two distinct parties in America.
In the end, it's the same plutocracy that owns both parties and is going to gut your social safety net.
Southern Beale says:
The only aspect of this that promises to offer any entertainment value is watching how much the Democrats give away for no good reason.
Yeah John Cole said basically the same thing yesterday. Actually, he said:
"Having watched Obama the last two years, I’m reasonably sure the brain trust in charge of the political operation will instead pretend the Republicans are serious and offer more than the Republicans as an opening bid, and then watch themselves get undercut but the douchebag Blue Dogs and flayed alive by the professional left."
However, with Blue Dogs being in the minority now I have a glimmer of hope that this actually won't happen. But we shall see. I am over the whole charade, personally.
Denn says:
Kabuki indeed. We should all have this pattern memorized by now. The Republicans throw down the soap (they pretty much spike it out of habit), then the Dems send the rest of us to pick it up because, golly gee someone has to do it (the adults!). Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseum.
CaffinatedOne says:
It's not who're the better negotiators (though Dems do suck there as well), it's whether Democrats (the administration primarily) really want to slash the social safety net. If they do, they'd just use this as an excuse ("We couldn't let republicans destroy the country, so we're very sorry that grandma will have to eat cat food….. they made us do it.").
It's, of course, terrible precedent to allow the debt ceiling to be used this way, and terrible policy as well. If that's not enough bad, there're no political benefits for democrats to doing this. republicans would use this to force Dems to slash the social safety net and then run against them for doing so, thus solidifying their already strong hold on the grayhairs. republicans are utterly immune from charges of blatant hypocrisy, so it's all positives for them.
Paul W. Luscher says:
My thoughts exactly.
Obama showed what he was made of when he did his Neville Chamberlain on tax cuts–and having seen that, the Repubs are going to jam it to him every chance they get–expecting, likely with good reason, that Obama will cave and call it "bipartisanship."
jazzbumpa says:
It might be theater, but it's also part of a greater strategy. The Rethugs absolutely want to gut every social welfare program they can find. Ed's pointed out here before about how income and wealth distribution have become more disparate over the past 30 years. Real median household income has scarcely budged over 4 decades – and that involves a massive change from almost totally single to mostly double income families.
Not satisfied with getting 90% of everything, the greedy oligarchs was every god damned penny.
As an aside, I'm pretty well convinced that federal deficits bear no relationship to inflation, so everything you're hearing on the inflation front is bullshit, too.
http://jazzbumpa.blogspot.com/2011/01/of-deficits-and-inflation-part-3.html
Besides that, the bees are dying, and we're all gong to starve.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/03/bumble-bee-decline_n_803896.html
WASF,
JzB
Hawes says:
I would hope that we'll see more of what we saw recently with Goolsbee on a Sunday Morning Gasfest warning about the debt ceiling.
Obama should – right fucking now – do an oval office speech about the horrible things that will happen should the debt ceiling not be raised.
Right now, "raising the debt ceiling" sounds like a bad thing to do. Who wants more debt?
If you define it as defaulting on the debt, ruining America's credit, crashing the global economy and freeing puppy rapists from prison, you have taken it off the table as a serious threat.
But messaging has not been the White House strong suit.
Gilmore says:
So the two sides are "people who take marching orders from Wall Street" and "lunatics", and you're in favor of…er…which side again?
sluggo says:
Never underestimate crazy. You may think that these Tea Partiers will bow to corporate powers and they just may do that. I think they may go clown college and just wreck the whole thing. It will be a close vote.
mother earth says:
Jazzbumpa, in Arkansas, not only are the bees dying, but birds and fish too!!!
Our very own, Timmy Griffin will be leading the charge to cut all things not important to our handful of millionaires from Arkansas, i.e. social programs. I actually told my dear sweet mother-in-law(also a Republican!) to STFU over Christmas because I cannot stand to hear people bemoaning the current deficit when THEY DID NOT SAY A WORD WHEN BUSH STARTED TWO WARS AND CUT TAXES FOR THE RICH!!!
And that's how I feel about this Republican House posturing about controlling the runaway deficit and spending. STFU. STFU. STFU.
Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.