The single most important story this week - and sadly, we're thinking the story won't entirely be over this week - is the insanity of the debt ceiling and budget negotiations. To say that we are concerned about the financial stability and the near-term future of both the U.S. and the world on this Monday morning is an understatement of extreme proportions.
In case you've somehow missed the entire story so far, the Washington Post's Ezra Klein and Dylan Matthews wrote a single short piece on Friday summarizing everything you need to know about the debt ceiling situation. In short, there is NO way to NOT default if we don't raise the debt ceiling, regardless of what the regressive nuts in the Tea Party say.
Who is to blame for this mess? It's obvious Americans are angry with both parties, as they should be. But don't confuse anger with blame, as far too much of the media did this past weekend. If you ignore outlying polls, most people are blaming the Republicans for the devolution of debate on this issue - and we wholeheartedly agree with that position on recent events.
Yes, both sides are responsible for accruing America's current debt level over the last ten years. On the right, they did it by advocating and passing things like unfunded wars, an unfunded Medicare Part D plan, and tax cuts that benefitted the wealthy over everyone else - and were supposed to expire in 2010. On the left, they didn't stand up to the bullies on the political right and demand more fiscal accountability. Now the bills are due, and there is no more putting off paying those bills.
The differing responses of the left and right on this simple fact have been stunning - especially as they appeared on Friday.
President Obama and Speaker Boehner had been working on a deal all last week. The President called the Speaker on Friday morning to continue the talks - and the Speaker refused to talk with the President. This insane back-and-forth went on all day, until finally, President Obama had enough of Speaker Boehner and the House GOP playing games - so the President took to the podium. Mr. Obama told the American people EXACTLY what had happened in the deals that he and the Speaker had been working on - even volunteering that yes, as Democrats and liberals had feared, the President was willing to cut Medicare, if only to get a deal. The ONE thing the President insisted on was that we PAY for some if the problem by raising taxes on the wealthiest, and getting rid of tax loopholes. The Republicans still refused. The President's response was clear - and angry about Republicans: “Can they say yes to anything?”
In short, the President gave the GOP almost everything they wanted - but as we warned last week, unless they get 100% of everything they want and everyone else gets nothing, Congressional Republicans won't be satisfied.
The key word the President used to describe their conduct was "inexcusable" - and we couldn't agree with him more, especially after the response from the other side.
Speaker Boehner's reply on Friday was to lie about the President's position, the Democrats' position, and the position of those in his own party on the debt ceiling issue. Boehner was lying so much, if we didn't know better, we might have thought he was auditioning to be a rug. We understand he's trying prevent the Tea Party members of the GOP from lynching him, but we also insist Mr. Boehner recall his Oath of Office was to the Constitution and the country - not an unelected, hyper-partisan lobbyist like Grover Norquist. Even Norquist has backed down from his extremist position in the face of worldwide economic collapse.
The response of the Tea Party has been the most insane of all - and it has quite obviously been part of the reason Mr. Boehner has been acting so stupidly. The Tea Partiers' response is simple: America doesn't need to pay its bills - and no one can make us. They're willing to blithely run the entire world off an economic cliff, because of their infantile refusal to deal with reality. It's as simple as that, sadly.
It's obvious who the liars, traitors, and incompetent frauds are in this whole charade. It's also clear who has been willing to truly negotiate with EVERYTHING on the table. Sadly, what's still unclear is how we can keep the least sane among us from dragging the whole world off the end of an extremely short economic pier.
