Scattered
If you have ten politicians, 6 Democrats and 4 Republicans, how many political viewpoints will be represented?
No fewer than seven. The Republicans will have one between them, and the Democrats will be lucky if they have only one each.
So I'm betting that the Democrats cave on the debt ceiling. I'm also betting that the Republican commitment to fiscal discipline only lasts until they retake the Senate and/or White House. The Cynic in me says that this is really nothing more than attempt to hobble the Democrats by cutting off their constituencies from programs they've come to rely on. As soon as they're pulling the strings again, they'll suddenly realize that borrowing money from overseas and spending it to pay off their own base will be necessary to grow the economy. And since you can barely get two Democrats to agree that the sky is blue, the Dems won't be able to monkey wrench them through a show of unity.
I suspect that they're going to get away with it because they've guessed, correctly, that Democratic constituencies are going to be disillusioned enough that they'll stay home come the next round of elections, and Republicans will manage to gain seats in the Senate, and possibly even manage to retake the White House, as long as they're able to avoid nominating someone who scares Democrats into running to the polls. But then again, I wasn't convinced that Barack Obama would manage to take the White House, so I'm not about to wager my home on this.
2 comments:
I was going to go with "one," unless one of the Democrats was Bernie Sanders, possibly Dennis Kucinich, or zombie Paul Wellstone.
I've been thinking that there's no way the money interests are going to let the country default on the debt, and even if you account for a schism between the Tea Party, Christian values, and supply-side Republicans, how many do you really need?
Obama can't possibly be taking this threat seriously. Hell, even if it was real, he could be getting some PR going about what is alleged to be at stake here, and make an effort to tie the consequences of default to the deserving. I mean, the Republicans are basically threatening to destroy everyone's savings in defense of preserving low taxes for rich people. He has not exactly played up that angle.
I conclude that either the risk is fake, or else whatever austerity he's conceding from the outset is in fact what he really wants.
I don't know what to think anymore except that we're managing to make a has of this whole "republic" thing.
Post a Comment