I’m so tired of the lunatics. Okay, you knew that an unhealthy percentage of Republicans and Republican lawmakers think it’s a good idea to fuck around with our nation’s credit rating by threatening to default on our debts every time we need to raise the debt ceiling. Remember the Trillion Dollar Coin idea? Remember how it eventually made enough sense that the president had to comment on it and the administration began hinting that it might be an option? The Treasury Department put the kibosh on it, but still, it was embarrassing and not a little scary. And it got our credit rating downgraded.
The idea, back then at least, was that that they could use the threat of a default, which would undoubtedly cause a global recession, to force the president to accede to their every loony demand. John Boehner quite rightly thought they were nuts but he evidently had misplaced his own nuts so the plan went ahead until it caused billions in damage and cost a lot of people their jobs. These are facts, as even eleven Republican members of Congress acknowledged in a recent petition they circulated against shutting down the government over Planned Parenthood funding.
“The 16-day government shutdown in 2013 cost our economy an estimated $24 billion and stalled the creation of over 100,000 private sector jobs,” [Rep. Martha McSally] and the other 10 lawmakers wrote in a letter to their colleagues.
But, wait, it gets worse, because now the Republicans are using the credit default anvil on each other as they compete for the Speaker’s gavel and other leadership positions.
Take the certifiable maniac Jason Chaffetz who currently heads up the House Committee on Oversight. He’s the loser who just presided over a hearing this weak in which he and his male Republican show-trialists had to learn the hard way that a mammogram is a radiological procedure carried out not by Planned Parenthood but by actual radiologists. Somehow, they thought this was both a surprise and some kind of gotcha admission on Planned Parenthood’s part.
Well, Chaffetz is going to run for the Speaker’s gavel for the reason I explained at soon as Boehner announced his resignation: replacing Boehner with McCarthy makes absolutely no sense.
The problem is, that McCarthy has a lot of support, mainly because he was in charge of recruiting the batshit crazy Class of ’10 that started all this nonsense in earnest. But Chaffetz has a plan:
“You don’t just give an automatic promotion to the existing leadership team,” [Chaffetz] said. “That doesn’t signal change. I think [House Republicans] want a fresh face and fresh new person who is actually there at the leadership table in the speaker’s role.”
…No Democrats are expected to back McCarthy or any other Republican, so the nominee cannot afford to lose the support of more than 28 GOP members.
Chaffetz suggested that McCarthy does not have that level of support: “There are nearly 50 people and a growing number that will not and cannot vote for Kevin McCarthy as the speaker on the floor. He’s going to fall short of the 218 votes on the floor of House.”
…The stakes of the speaker’s race were heightened in recent days after the Treasury Department announced that Congress must act to raise the federal debt ceiling on or about Nov. 5 — less than a week after Boehner leaves office.
An effort by Boehner to pass a debt-limit increase in his final days with mainly Democratic votes — as happened last week on a 10-week government funding extension — could further weaken McCarthy, who as majority leader is considered to be in control of the floor agenda.
Chaffetz said Sunday that “we’re just not going to unilaterally raise the debt limit” and suggested that he would take cues from members who overwhelmingly support using the deadline as leverage in spending negotiations with Obama.
“As the speaker, you’ve got to take the will of our body, appreciate and respect the process, and then go fight for that,” he said.
So, there it is.
Now it’s McCarthy’s ascension to the Speakership that will be held hostage.
Either he agrees to default on our debts, cause another credit downgrade, light another $24 billion on fire, and cost another 100,000 people their jobs, or he doesn’t get to be in charge.
Do you see why I take the tone I take with these assholes?
