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The Nightmare Ahead [1]

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Date: 2023-01-08

House Speaker/political coward Kevin McCarthy

It sure was fun watching spineless political hack/bald-faced liar Kevin McCarthy get humiliated before finally achieving his dream of become speaker of the House of Representatives.

There were all kinds of jokes and memes coming from the Left as the GOP’s mess played out. Even some Democratic House members, who should understand the seriousness of what’s unfolding in front of us, decided to be cute with their bags of popcorn and things like that.

Well, it’s really not funny. It’s scary because now that the foolishness of the moment is over, our country and many of its citizens are facing a very real danger from a political party that sees responsible governing as an afterthought and destroying people’s lives and our economy as collateral damage in achieving its goals.

How things play out over the coming months will be critical. Will McCarthy’s concessions make it impossible to save us from the portion of his caucus whose stupidity and disregard for everyone and everything but themselves could push us to personal and economic disaster? Will Democrats again have to ride to the rescue of an irresponsible clown car of a political party that’s put us on the brink (see Franklin Roosevelt, Barrack Obama, and Joe Biden)?

I guess we’ll see. For now, let’s look at what we’re up against and what we could be facing very soon.

The Republicans are poised to hurt our country in any number of ways, but the three that stand out are how they deal with increasing the debt ceiling, keeping government open by coming up with a spending bill before the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30, and funding the war in Ukraine.

As the Washington Post reported: “House Republicans are set to steer the country toward a series of fiscal showdowns as they look to force the White House to agree to massive spending cuts, threatening a return to the political brinkmanship that once nearly crippled the economy and almost plunged the U.S. government into default. … party lawmakers said they agreed to drive a hard line in upcoming budget talks, potentially including demands for significant changes to Social Security and Medicare.”

Yes, they’re going after the two programs most critical for the health and well-being of our country’s seniors. Rest assured, they’ll balance that with no interest in cutting the spending that feeds the military industrial complex or in raising taxes, despite the fact that the only two ways to address deficits are to cut spending and/or increase revenues.

In fact, that’s the tell that the GOP is lying about its concern over the national debt. It lives for tax cuts, like the one under former President/unindicted criminal Donald Trump that’s expected to add about $2 trillion to our debt (overall the Trump administration added about $8 trillion in just four years).

The real sword of Damocles is the debt ceiling, which is the statutory limit on how much the U.S. government can borrow to pay its existing bills. Lawmakers must act to raise or suspend it or the country will default, which many experts fear would set off a global fiscal calamity.

Let me repeat that: A GLOBAL FISCAL CALAMITY.

The Post reported that Republicans plan to cut spending by billions of dollars by targeting federal health, education, labor, and other domestic agencies that Democrats say are already underfunded. Some Republicans have gone as far as saying they’ll demand big cuts and structural changes to federal entitlement programs in exchange for voting to lift the debt ceiling.

“Make no mistake, the debt ceiling issue in and of itself is intended to leverage better policies moving forward as it relates to spending,” said Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), who is vying to lead the top tax-focused committee in the House. “I think we shouldn’t shy away from that.”

Actually, it’s not intended to leverage anything. This is paying debt that’s already been accrued. It’s our government’s responsibility to pay our country’s debts, just like it’s our citizens’ responsibility to pay theirs.

This is like telling your spouse, “You’re spending too much on playing golf, so I’m not going to pay our bills this month.” It’s that stupid, irresponsible, and potentially damaging.

If you want to cut future debt you do so through budget negotiations. When you’re talking about tanking the economy because you want to spend less on our seniors and vital programs like food stamps, you’re not negotiating. You’re involved in political terrorism.

Democrats have countered that they’re willing to discuss federal spending but not the debt ceiling. That’s how adults handle things. The problem is the other side has too many petulant children.

We could hit the crisis point as early as this summer, according to Shai Akabas, director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. The exact date will depend on upcoming federal indicators.

Back in 2011, Republicans refused to raise the debt ceiling without significant spending cuts. Just the threat of that happening cost taxpayers more than $1.3 billion, raised the costs of borrowing, and cut more than 2,000 points off the stock market, the Post reported.

This led to the Democrats agreeing to a plan that cut and capped domestic spending for 10 years. Some budget experts saw this as indiscriminate and harmful to Americans who rely on government services.

Now, like in 2011, “People are surfacing an issue that is very legitimate and important, which is the fiscal health of the country, but the approach and solution is reckless and unrealistic,” according to Maya MacGuineas, leader of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a group that advocates for deficit reduction.

“Reckless and unrealistic.” That pretty much sums of the Republican Party to a T.

You can read the Post’s story here.

Let’s say you’re like many senior citizens, meaning you need money from your nest egg to supplement your Social Security payments and any post-retirement income and pensions you might have. Now imagine your nest egg significantly shrinking due to the effects of Congress defaulting on our debt. What are you going to do?

Or, let’s say you’re a single mother who desperately needs food stamps and other federal aid to support you and your two children. How are you going to make up the difference when the cuts come? Maybe, like many food stamps recipients, you already have a job, or maybe the cost of child care is keeping you out of the labor market. What are you going to do?

Will there be enough sensible Republicans to join Democrats to prevent this kind of financial disaster? Will McCarthy’s rule changes make it more difficult for this to happen?

The party of fiscal responsibility is threatening to not fulfill the responsibility of paying what we owe if it doesn’t’ get its way. These are people’s lives that the Republicans are playing with. This is the financial health of our country. History shows the GOP hasn’t been a very good steward of either.

Do they even care?

Let’s hope the worst doesn’t come, but if it does, we know who we have to go looking for to fix it.

***

Thank you for reading my post. You can see my other writings on my blog: Musings of a Nobody.

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