I knew this day would come, and finally, it’s arrived… but incredibly, it’s much worse than I ever anticipated.
I refer to the furious fracas going on south of the border over raising the US Debt Ceiling: that wholly self-inflicted hemorrhaging scalp wound in the American economic psyche also known as “The Debt Crisis”.
As even my dog knows by now, raising the Debt Ceiling is a peculiar little process the US government uses to stay afloat on borrowed money. It’s generally a simple matter of congressional housekeeping, almost a rubber-stamp process, so hideous is the prospect of not raising it. Ronaldus Maximus raised it 18 times, Georgie raised it 7 times (yes, they did!), and it was never a problem for teabaggers or anyone else until the Black Guy took over — just a coincidence, no doubt. (Of course, there were no teabaggers until the Black Guy took over — another one of those coinkydinks, I’m sure.) But I digress…
I said above that it’s “so much worse than I anticipated” because at that time I totally expected the GOP to do what they always do when confronted with raising the Debt Ceiling: vote to raise it. Then do an amusing little soft shoe routine to explain the vote to their fiscally-illiterate teabagger contingent, who’d no doubt be livid. But I underestimated the GOP establishment’s fear of the teabagger’s white-hot wrath, and the size of the teabagger tidal wave that swept Congress last November. Republicans now find their power over Congress compromised by “T.M.T. Syndrome”.
Yep: Too Many Teabaggers. At least half the GOP congress are baggers, a toxic , sweaty combination of dumbness and jabbering batshit insanity… so much so that they won’t even vote for a Debt Ceiling bill from one of their own. They think blowing up the economy sounds like it might be kinda fun, maybe have a tailgate party or something.
On the mini-TV in my office, CNBC is interviewing one teabagging congresscritter after another, and they become increasingly belligerent with every sound bite. The market’s finally reacting to the possibility that the US might actually default — stocks are down, the price of gold is on fire: an ominous portent of something hideous on the horizon.
There’s no doubt that the US debt is nauseatingly, obscenely massive, Debt On Steroids, after a violent 10-year spree of psychotic spending. That something needs to be done about it is indisputable. But it didn’t get that way overnight, so trying to fix it overnight is probably a Bad Idea. A scalpel and a surgeon’s delicate touch are probably what’s called for, not some rube swinging a chainsaw with one hand and a bottle of cheap whiskey with the other.
UPDATE: Boner Bill passed the House, now proceeds to the Senate to be Terminated with Extreme Prejudice. (All that this cute little drama accomplished was to save Boehner’s ass.)
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unrepentant old hippie 
Too Many Teabaggers
Yup, too many teabaggers, too many surburbanites, too many small towm types, too mant rural yahoos., too many red states..yada, yada. We really have to do something about this democracy thing.
I guess you can either hurl gigantic curses and rend your garments, or deal with it.,
Welcome back, you’ve been badly missed.
Looking forward to seeing Cry-Boner realize that he isn’t going to be paid next month unless he raises the debt ceiling. Maybe he can cry about being poor again whilst he screws over the poor in his own country.
Hi Peter!
No… Unlike some lefties, I don’t broad-brush all conservatives (or suburbanites, or small towners) as teabaggers, which are are a minority even among conservatives and a breed unto themselves. If you doubt it, look no further than the civil war raging between the establishment GOP and their tea party wing.
That said, you’re alluding to one of my favourite themes: the rise of a right-leaning, heretofore *silent* majority, and the left’s shell-shockedness at being marginalized by them. Lots more to come on that topic! 😀
Hi Bleatmop
I’m pretty sure Boner is well aware that he and millions of others won’t be getting paid unless they stop farting around and start wrapping this thing up. Worse still, if all the GOP’s drama results in bond and credit ratings being downgraded, it won’t take long for the ripple effect to crater the value of the Boner Investment Portfolio. That’s the kind of thing that gets their attention.
Good post over at Pandagon about how this is a religious things for many of the baggers.
http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/religious_fanatics_and_the_debt_ceiling
Seems that they were praying for Boner after he proposed raising the debt ceiling. Nothing like some religious insanity to mix in with all the other insanity going on right now down south. I mean, Yahweh was very clear when he said “Thou shall not raise the debt ceiling beyond 15% of annual GDP unless you have a significant trade surplus, in which case you can increase to 20% after burning 5 cows and 3 goats.”
This whole debt thing is nothing more than Theatre of the Absurd. Of course they are going to raise the debt ceiling. How else are they going to pay their corporate masters? Matt Taibbi hits one out of the ballpark with this article on John Boehner,
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/matt-taibbi-the-crying-shame-of-john-boehner-20110105
I firmly believe that the teabaggers are people that were previously institutionalized, but released during the reign of King Ronnie…
Welcome back!
Bleatmop
Sure, the good old standby weapon of Imprecatory Prayer. Probably praying Boehner would have a sudden “change of heart” — as in, his heart would suddenly decide to stop beating.
Oh well, they got close: his bill’s heart stopped beating in the Senate last night 😀
SQ
Ha, absolutely. Both sides are kibbitzing around with these lame-o unpassable “bills” that have all kinds of unrelated provisions attached to them — ridiculous, all kabuki.
The debt ceiling will be raised — I expect Wall Street has started leaning on these guys (on both sides) in a big way. They probably expected all this farting around to be over by now. (I was really puzzled a few weeks ago when the stock mkt was rallying amidst growing panic about the debt ceiling, so I asked my broker about it and he basically said “Nobody believes they’d be DUMB enough to let the govt default”. But anyone who watches the markets could see the unmistakable signs of fear & doubt setting in this past week.)
Taibbi as usual is magnificent, thanks for the link.
Eric Cantor, on the other hand, stands to make quite a killing (in more ways than one) if we default because of the intransigence of the teahadists.
From what I read of it, it wasn’t imprecatory prayer (wherein one prays for harm/shame/downfall to come to one’s enemies) so much as it was what Roger Ebert famously called “horizontal prayer” – where one is only concerned with being a passive-aggressive, bullying asshat.
I keep pointing out to people that with the current prime rate in the US and Canada (.25% that’s 1/4 of a percent or 25¢ a year to borrow $100 in the US and 1% in Canada), they are paying you to borrow money. In Canada inflation was over 3% PA in May, slightly down in June. Borrow money today, repay it with inflated dollars next year, pocket the difference. Now is the time to float bonds to do capital projects – but that would make too much sense. Love it that the same idiots that told everybody the toxic subprime mortgage CDO’s were just fine and worth face value, is now threatening to reduce the US of A’s rating. And we should listen to them why?
Good point.
And the credit rating agencies… how is it that they have even a shred of credibility left after that debacle?
People have the attention span of gnats.