Remember this, from back in mid-November?
A co-chairman of President Obama’s debt commission said Friday that a fast-approaching congressional vote on whether to raise the government’s debt limit will cause a political “bloodbath” that will force lawmakers to take their recommendations seriously, regardless of whether their panel produces a consensus product.
“It won’t matter whether two of us have signed this or 14 or 18. When debt limit time comes they are going to look around and say, ‘What in the hell do we do now?” said Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming.
“We’ve got guys who will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give them a piece of meat, real meat, off this package. And boy, the bloodbath will be extraordinary. They’ll say, ‘Well how the hell do you get meat off this package?’ And they’ll say, ‘A couple of jerks did something for eight months and it’s laying out there. Go look at it. It’s written in English. No wizardry in it,” Simpson said, speaking with reporters at a breakfast in Washington sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
Alan Simpson is what passes for a moderate in the Republican Party, and he told us that these Tea Party maniacs were not going to give a shit about destroying the credit-rating of the United States of America. So, we shouldn’t be surprised that the Tea Partiers are utterly indifferent to the potential consequences of giving people the impression that we’re not a reliable place to invest.
Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips is sounding the “drumbeat” when it comes to the debate over raising the debt ceiling. He wrote on his blog Sunday: “We need our Senators and Congressmen to hold firm on this one. The left will tell us it is the end of the world if the debt ceiling is not raised. There is something worse than defaulting on our debt. That is continued, uncontrolled spending and borrowing.”
Never mind that this dude didn’t give a crap about the deficit while George W. Bush was creating it. He is echoing the new talking point: whatever the consequences of destroying our creditworthiness, they won’t be as catastrophic as what will happen if we keep accruing more debt. So, obviously we should destroy our creditworthiness in a vain attempt to slash spending by absurd levels overnight and without hearings or foresight.
I think the best way to deal with this is for the president to talk directly to the large international investors who finance this country and tell them not to worry, that the Republicans are acting like children but they have no real power, and that the heat-fever racing through their brains will subside once they get a few gulps of Potomac-water. Just call them petulant jackasses who lack all seriousness and should be treated accordingly. This has the added advantage of setting the basis for Obama’s reelection campaign which is pretty much, “What? R U Kidding? These m’fuckers are craaaazee.”