$12.5 million per hour
not saved.
I understand the (very awful) Tea Party reasoning that they want to shut down the government anyways (it's pretty breathtaking that many will outright admit this, but some already did say as much in 2011, the last time we had this go-around), but they will not gain any converts when it becomes clear what the cost to the economy has been (and will be). They only keep any popular standing in the endgame of this battle if the brinksmanship doesn't go over the cliff. Otherwise, they most likely will lose big time, and take the Republican Party in general down with them as well. Of course there will always be a few extremists who say "we never REALLY tried our plan" like all the other adherents of failed doctrines, but I think people realize that this is going to fail the simple empirical test of not shitting the bed.
Some news outlets ran with stories early on in the shutdown saying that we'd see nothing different in our daily lives. Well, I haven't either - but the local Federal Center is closed and all the employees are sent home, people filing bad claims in civil court against the government are having a field day while the govermment lawyers' hands are tied, and there are millions of people basically out of work who are wondering if they even will get paid for their time furloughed. Even if they get paid, what about all the work that was supposed to be done?
The combination of breaching the debt ceiling and the shutdown is particularly awful, although not world-ending. Just breaching the debt ceiling alone would result in the government having to spend daily tax revenues to pay bills as they come due - you wouldn't run a small business that way; it's highly inefficient. I've read an estimate that the government's services and spending (or some measure close to that) would shrink by a third from that alone. With the shutdown in place, and likely to remain in place if the debt ceiling isn't in place, we've got the Anti-Deficiency Act to contend with as well. Any agency or law that's subject to appropriations will remain in shutdown mode, unable to run normally.
So far the Republican offers on getting out of the crisis haven't been heartwarmingly honest (Democrats have had a standing offer to meet since March, which was repeatedly rejected, so it's rich for the Republicans to lie about that and then try to say that they're extending the olive branch) but they are being made.
I still don't think that Boehner and the majority of House Republicans are stupid enough to breach the debt limit, but some are saying that the date (October 17) is imprecise and they are hoping to fudge the numbers a bit. Clearly the House Republicans are in a tight spot - Boehner probably has already lost control of a good part of his caucus and he wants to appear as tough on the President and Democrats as possible to try to convince them that he's got their back. There's also the convention of the "Hastert rule" which makes him unlikely to bring any bill to the floor for an up-down vote if there aren't a majority of supporters in his own party - even if there would be a coalition between enough House Republicans and Democrats to vote it through.
The other important part of this is President Obama's bad history with the House Republicans. In 2011 he caved; if he does that again it might paralyze the legislature and weaken the executive branch for decades to come. Reid, Obama, and the rest are right to frame this in terms of extortion - what the Republicans are doing is certainly legal but it is still extortion according to the normal course of business. Even if you think that this is a good idea
this time, having legislation get held up any time a minority interest in one party throws a fit is clearly "unsustainable," and the solution isn't "negotiating" like Boehmer claims. Meanwhile, Republicans are having great "open mic" comment sessions trying to figure out the best way to spin this for future elections - of course everybody's doing that, but their message is clearly based on avoidance and distortion. Yes, I'm aware that a default will likely hurt Democrats less than Republicans and it's hard to see a third party being formed even at this time. I am almost willing to go through the pain of a default just so that this generation has the experience of doing something dumb so we don't do it again. That said, I'd really
really like that not to happen. But I agree with the President; it's time to make a stand against the anti-system activism. Years of liming along like this might end up worse for the country than a debt default now would be, as horrible as that is to contemplate.
It's anarchy, plain and simple, without any redeeming qualities.
Once again, austerity sucks. Debt is fine so long as the rate of its increase isn't too high.
2011 was when things didn't work. 2012 worked better but it hurt the collective butts of the "FORCEFUL AND PRINCIPLED" crowd who couldn't claim a victory.
I'm sorry for the people and fellow Shmuppers who are being directly harmed by this.
trap15 wrote:It would be really nice if the GOP would stop being The World's Oldest Babies
It's them elephants, it's hard to avoid being mistaken for a big baby when you're that wrinkly, right?
Experience is important, but not getting walked all over is as well.
