My title refers back to the title of my last post: "Does this signal a deal on the debt ceiling?"
Obviously, it didn't. I was too optimistic. Now Boehner has walked out of negotiations again, apparently completely unbending about revenue increases of any sort.
He is in a bind with the Tea Party muscle just saying no to anything, and with his less intractable base afraid to cross them.
Will there be a default? Probably not. My fear though is that Obama will cave in and agree to even further giving in just to get a deal. That's the way the game is played: it's called chicken and the one who holds out longest wins -- unless he holds out a bit too long, and then there is catastrophe.
My concern is that the Repubs care less about the disaster that default would bring than Obama does. So they think they have less to lose politically.
Whatever happens, the Dems have got to find a way to make this backfire politically on them in 2012.
What the American people should be feeling is outrage that politicians are skating this close to national disaster for cheap political gain, rather than doing what's good for the country.
Ralph
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Even Republican governors, like Virginia's Bob McDonnell, are reportedly furious with Washington. They're saying that the uncertainty about derault is going to cause even greater fiscal problems for tight state budgets, because interest rates will go up on the loans they have to take out from private investors to meet the states' obligations.
ReplyDeleteGood. Let them pressure their reps in Congress. That's where the pressure should come from.
If you Google (now there is a verb that did not exist fifteen years ago),
ReplyDelete“how many times did Reagan increase the debt ceiling?”
The answer?
Reagan did it 18 times.
And, Eric Cantor and John Boehner and Mitch
McConnell voted to do so.
Bush raised the ceiling five times over an eight year period, even after Clinton's administration left with a surplus.
Although Bush campaigned to pay off the debt,
as noted in Google:
June 2002 - a $450 Billion increase;
May 2003 - a $900 Billion increase;
November 2004 - $800 Billion increase;
March 2006 - $781 Billion increase;
September 2007 - $850 Billion increase.
NINETEEN TIMES they voted to raise the debt ceiling
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/04/14/158424/republican-leader...