It's nearly that most wonderful time of the year, that now customary annual event, that vastly anticipated occasion when congressional Republicans threaten pull the pin on the economic grenade in their pocket, thereby decimating only the public-opinion gains they had made in the preceding months.
Yes, it's almost debt-ceiling time--February's end, says Treasury--thus it's once again time for the GOP to heave what they regard as the witless ballast of political prudence over the side and commence with yet another imbecile act of self-injurious, economic extortion.
And God bless 'em, it is that which they plot, as I write:
House Republicans are meeting Thursday ... to map out their legislative strategy for the year, but they face a near-term decision that could dictate everything else that follows--what to do with the debt ceiling....
[A] number of Republicans, including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, have said there will have to be some conditions placed on any increase in the debt ceiling in order to win enough votes to pass the House.
The Wall Street Journal is egging them on.
[I]f the GOP can unify behind a proposal that raises or suspends the debt ceiling and makes some sort of budget or policy change that voters think is reasonable, then Democrats will quickly find themselves on the hot seat with little time to spare.
The Journal's seating arrangement seems to be a trifle confused. But of course that observation assumes that Democrats first make it clear to voters that any extortion of apocalyptic proportions is, in a sendup to understatement, unreasonable.
And there's the rub--the only rub, yet always the rub. Effective Democratic clarity would lead those voters to the ineluctable and singular conclusion that House Republicans are unshakably mad--and should, with a thundering permanence in November, be put out of our misery. Such clarity, however, delivered with a necessarily savage repetition, eludes the moderates.
Yet I live in hope that Republican reflexes cannot fail to get them in trouble. What are they going to ask for in trade for destroying their country by raising the debt ceiling? That's what it is you know. Raising the debt ceiling means the end of civilization and freedom and what not...yadda, yadda,yadda. That's been their message for years now. It might be just a touch difficult to ask for nothing in the light of previous battles to the death. They aren't going to get Obamacare. They've already fucked with SNAP. ACORN doesn't exist. Vaginas are being managed at the state level. What exactly can they ask to be slashed that isn't going to screw with their own base? I can't see they have much choice here but to do something really stupid. If they don't do something stupid their own far right is going to tear new assholes everywhere. And Erick Erickson will birth a cow.
Posted by: Peter G | January 30, 2014 at 11:45 AM