Debt Ceiling: High Ground Is A B**ch
July 30, 2011 4 Comments
For the last couple weeks, I have been hearing:
- the debt ceiling needs to be raised, or the U.S. will ‘default’
- if it’s not raised, we risk plunging ‘back’ into ‘another’ recession (because of course the economy’s just fine right now)
- only stupid people would oppose raising it
- only crazy Tea Partiers would oppose raising it
- people not for raising the debt ceiling are putting politics over what’s for the good of the country
Thankfully, on Friday, the House of Representatives passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling. Crisis averted!
Oh. Wait. The Senate, led by Democrats, rejected it, voting it down two hours later.
Surely all the above complaints I have been hearing above will now be directed exclusively towards Harry Reid and the Democratic Senate? For putting politics above what’s good for the country? For threatening to bring on ‘another’ recession? For edging us closer to the brink of economic crisis? For being stupid?
The beauty of this observation is that I have the high ground. Last week, I criticized those conservatives who were against raising the debt ceiling and advocated passage.
What about all you lefties who criticized Republicans for the same thing, but are silent and nonplussed as the Senate mindlessly – with no debate – votes down a measure that (supposedly) is necessary to save the country if not the entire world economic system? Where’s your fucking high ground now, bitches?
I grow impatient playing these games and pretending all these ‘political arguments’ are serious and sincere. All you fucking lefties fucking care about is (D)s being after the name of your politicians (since that’s ‘your team’), and the only (non-sex-related) policy you care about is other peoples’ taxes being raised, all the fucking time. At least if you’d just fucking admit it I could respect you for honesty, an option unavailable to me at this time.
My understanding of politics increased significantly when I realized that both sides think the same of the other. Namely, liberals “grow impatient playing these games and pretending all these ‘political arguments’ are serious and sincere. All you fucking righties fucking care about is (R)s being after the name of your politicians (since that’s ‘your team’), and the only (non-sex-related) policy you care about is corporate taxes being lowered, all the fucking time.”
This goes for just about everything. Rightwingers think the media has a liberal bias. Leftwingers think the media has a conservative bias. You think universities are leftist, we think universities are rightist. I don’t think there are a whole lot of exceptions to this duality principle.
Now that that’s dealt with, to the matter at hand. If the House passed a bill that would raise the debt ceiling and at the same time require that all registered Democrats be denied the right to vote, obviously that would be voted down and voting it down would not be a case of “refusing to compromise”. It’s an extreme example, but Boehner’s bill is the same kind of thing, just not as extreme. There is no compromise: compromise would mean both sides make some kind of sacrifice. Republicans in general (and this house bill in particular) have a huge problem with thinking “Compromise” means “Republicans get what they want, Democrats get nothing.” You’ll say, “but the Democrats get the raised debt ceiling!” But Obama could just invoke the 14th, and honestly, he’s being extremely wimpy and irresponsible the way he’s handling this, he should’ve come out a month ago and said “I’ll invoke the 14th if you all don’t cooperate” and then moved onto more important issues. Certainly that’s what GW would have done if the roles were reversed.
Your pox-on-both-sides argument might have merit, if not for two words: HIGH. GROUND. I have it. Read it and weep. Mwuahahah!
Do you genuinely think universities are ‘rightist’? Okay, not ‘leftist’, sure. But you genuinely think they are ‘rightist’? Really? (You’re probably gonna come back with something about universities being big corporations, which makes them rightist. Actually, forget I asked…)
More seriously though, I don’t see the symmetry. The (D)s voted in lockstep against this bill. The problem was not that (R)s were in lockstep, but that they were split, with a minority against. That minority lost, and (R)s voted to raise the debt ceiling, as desired. It’s difficult to make the case that (R)s were guilty of pure partisanship when they were split.
Further, your ‘debt ceiling + deny the right to vote’ analogy might have some merit if there were some onerous provision in this Boehner bill that you, or someone, could point to that made it the ‘poison pill’ you imply. But there is not, or you haven’t named it if there is. Certainly, the Senate didn’t name it in the two-hour non-debate period it took them to vote it down mindlessly. Nor has President Obama cited any onerous problem with the framework of the Boehner bill, in fact the only thing he’s come out and said he wants out of such a bill is that it extend the debt ceiling by time Y instead of only X, where Y is calibrated to be > (the time between now and the next Presidential election) – an extraneous, silly constraint that has nothing to do with anything, certainly not the economic health of the country or staving off ‘another’ recession.
So who is really ‘putting politics ahead of the interests of the country’? If ‘both sides’ do this how so?
I do agree that Obama could (and should, if he needs to) just invoke the 14th. The problem is that would go against his strategy of scaring the public into thinking the U.s. will ‘default’ if he doesn’t get a debt-ceiling raise. If Obama were to acknowledge he could use the 14th (or, easier, just prioritize the freaking payments) he’d lose the entire lever he’s trying to use to get his way. But if you’re acknowledging there’s no real looming-default crisis in the first place, i.e. that the Obama Administration is lying about all this, then I think we can agree we should just ignore the issue then and refuse to buckle to the artificial and (as you point out) fundamentally-dishonest debt-ceiling pressure.
Best,
The VAST majority of college professors and reporters are registered Democrats, with moderately liberal views on most political, moral, and social issues; study after study has found this. To believe that the media and universities are right-wing, (not just “to the right of me” but “right-wing”) you have to be way, Way, WAY over on the left, getting on towards Communism or anarcho-syndicalism, to the point where you believe that all of our Democratic presidents, and the Democratic party itself, have been and are “right-wing”, which is not where most Americans are at. Judged by the American mainstream (never mind the historical average) the media and universities are moderately left wing. Case closed.
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