The Debt Ceiling Addendum
PRESCRIPT (because no one ever reads the postscripts):
Since House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy just barely delivered a compromise deal to extend the debt limit ceiling by wrenching it away from maggots in the Republican party, we have been handed a brief reprieve from the impending avalanche of anticipated consequences from a debt default, which will have catastrophic consequences for the entire planet. If you voted for a Republican in 2022, or stayed home because you couldn’t bear to vote for a Democrat, congratulations. This disaster is on you now Enjoy the consequences.
I have withdrawn from all but the most cursory review of the daily headlines because I am now convinced that the younger generation of “journalists” do not know how to write succinctly and lack the maturity to validate their opinions with the wealth of life experience required to justify their views. I also can’t stand being jerked around by the promotion of false crises that have been invented to gain market shares and publicity points.
Five Democratic senators voted against the vacation of the debt ceiling for a two-year period, taking advantage of the head counts that assured them their nays would not result in the defeat of the measure to bolster their liberal credentials.
Of course, if the vote had gone haywire – if the Republican cohort in the Senate had voted in union against the measure – those five Democrats would have tucked in their tails and voted for the measure because, well, because defaulting on the national debt would – theoretically, at least – have resulted in the collapse of the American economy, taking the rest of the world with it.
Voting against the compromise measure allowed Sanders of Vermont, Warren and Markey of Massachusetts, Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Merkley of Oregon to buy some cheap publicity that would enhance their images among liberal voters, but those votes also weakened the re-election prospects for a sitting Democratic president by providing ammunition for further detractions from the left edge of the Democratic cohort and perhaps encouraging left-leaning candidates to jump into a must-win race upon which the future of the Republic hinges.
Every time the debt ceiling comes up for renewal, I get sick to my stomach because the useless idiots who infect our political process think nothing of threatening the lives of the 66 million people who depend upon the Social Security and Medicare to which they are entitled by more than eight decades of settled federal law…simply to gain a few popularity points with their respective constituencies.
I’m fed up with the useless idiots.
Aren’t you?
06/02/2023 @ 4:23 pm
Definitely fed up, to answer your question.
Add disappointed.
Merkley won’t get my vote again.
06/03/2023 @ 5:37 am
I agree with you 100%. It appears that the only rationale involved in this process is how these various legislators, in each body, position themselves for re-election.
But, here’s the thing. I actually think the truth of the matter is more hopeful than it appears. Again, I agree that we are getting a poor quality of journalism from those with that responsibility. I also agree that the way these various legislators talk, and vote does not correspond to how they feel about the issue on an individual level, so we can tend to default to the easiest suspicion to game out, that being self interest. The debt ceiling, however, gives us a window into their thinking. First of all, no one wants the default. Even the blowhards on either side of the divide understand, to some degree, that it would be a negative result, if not necessarily knowing the full reasons why. So, the blowhards blew, and all the while the game was played in the middle. The MAGA GOP failed to garner support from relatively moderate Republicans to further hamstring McCarthy, thus weakening themselves. Their major accomplishment was getting into a negotiation with Biden. Biden gave them little else. Given that negotiation is the way the legislature is supposed to work, they surrendered their extremist stance to ‘win’ the concession of non-extremism.
Remember that old Bugs Bunny cartoon with Pete Puma where Pete goes to see Bugs hoping to get Bugs’s nephew and eat him. Bugs and Pete sit down for tea to discuss it, and Bugs offers Pete “lumps” of sugar for his tea, and then hits him in the head with a mallet? Eventually, Pete thinks he has Bugs’s game figured out, and he refuses to allow Bugs to offer him ‘lumps’, so he hits himself in the head with the mallet. In this debt ceiling negotiation, Biden was Bugs. McCarthy was Pete Puma. The misdirection was making (or allowing) McCarthy to think that the negotiation was about negotiating. As such, making it about negotiating removes the extremes of both sides from the game. So, in order for the game to appear real, the Democrats had to have extremism to trade. Biden, and Sanders created a Potemkin left extreme to make the GOP feel that it received value in a negotiation that was never a negotiation. They got their pockets picked. Better yet, they have to sell their accomplishment to their constituents. McCarthy owes his success to Hakim Jeffries, and not MTG or Trump, or any other right wing demagogue.
So, yes, we are being lied to. The journalists are not getting it. The whole process is sickening. But, the good thing is that the game played out in the middle of the field. The extreme right was cut out of the game, and the extreme left was bait.
06/04/2023 @ 9:14 am
This may be the best comment I have ever received on any of my writings.
06/04/2023 @ 10:38 am
That’s extremely generous, Alan. Thanks.
06/03/2023 @ 12:58 pm
Mirrors on the ceiling! Such a fine line ‘twix PROBABILITY and our pandora’s box of possibilities …. Hey default is not an option and the day is done. Hip East Coast girl and I are partying this warm Saturday. Flying like eagles, LO;} ☮💜☮
06/03/2023 @ 4:44 pm
While political back and forth isn’t my forte, I didn’t see the rationale of those who voted against as cheap publicity as much as their struggling with bile over the compromises.
Senator Sanders wrote his reasoning here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/02/bernie-sanders-debt-ceiling-bill
Not saying I agree, I don’t know enough on this topic, but Sanders’ reasoning was thought-provoking. And how does the 14th Amendment come into play?
I do have grave concerns over corporate interests/power, oligarchy, wealth inequality, those bought by big money, and the level of power they wield, the seeming lack of care for anything other than more profits no matter the cost. We The People seem to be the cost. But again, I don’t know enough as I’d like, so I ask here (as well as elsewhere).
Am curious if there are further thoughts/perspectives considering Sanders’ points from any of you.
To me, it feels as if we will (be forced to?) compromise until there is nothing left with value. I also believe in compromise when necessary, but where’s the line beyond which is unrecognizable? Giving in? Losing any sense of this country’s ideals? Full-on authoritarianism?
It’s too late, anyhow?
…
I just don’t know, but none of this current state of affairs feels right or good.
And is a change in direction even possible.
06/03/2023 @ 9:53 pm
Here’s a fact: If the budget deal was about to fail because it was falling short by one vote, and that one vote belonged to Bernie Sanders, I guarantee you that he would have caved in and voted for the deal. He says as much in his Guardian article when he admits that the failure to pass the compromise measure WHEN IT WAS PASSED would have resulted in a global economic meltdown.
Ergo, despite his rhetoric, his vote against the bill was political grandstanding pure and simple., in my not so humble opinion.
06/04/2023 @ 12:23 am
Yes, he’s quite clear he realizes the consequences of its passing and voted against *because* his vote wasn’t ‘needed.’ I hear you on your opinion about it, and you’re clearly not the only one.
I did find Sanders reasoning thought-provoking and again, it has me pondering on how far in compromising is it no longer compromising but rather giving in to terrible trends. And is it even possible to change course at this point?
I appreciated hearing the reality of what important issues/items were also on the table and got chopped in order to prevent this default…. even if I don’t agree with everything, I appreciate his voice, any voice, speaking out about it.
I mean, we ought to be hearing about these consequential things, shouldn’t we? Poor timing, grandstanding, won’t be quiet and go along, whatever it is, the information is important to know, I think.
06/04/2023 @ 9:19 am
I would agree with you wholeheartedly if I didn’t believe that we are no longer living in a democratic republic, because this country has never been democratic and is no longer a republic. because a republic exists only for as long as the governed consent to be governed. The Civil War marked the end of the Republic and the beginning of the American Imperium. Lincoln was both the last president of the Republican era and the first president of the Imperial era.
We live in the illusion that we consent to be governed when in fact we have no choice. This will become more apparent over the next two congressional elections, as Gerrymandering and other voter suppression schemes prevent us from ever again hosting an uncontested election.
The Civil War was inevitable. It was baked into the cake the day the constitution was first voted uppn. The Civil War also never ended. We are still embroiled in that conflict.
06/04/2023 @ 7:12 pm
You guys have got to read this column from the WP. I’m glad that my comment posted a day earlier, because it sure looks like I wrote mine after reading his. I’d love to think he read mine and then wrote his, although I am sure that didn’t happen. And, it is not just that we have the same reasoning, but also some of the same wording. Anyway…you must read it.
06/04/2023 @ 11:57 pm
I would love to read the article, but I can’t because I canceled my subscription to WAPO just last week because I almost never found anything on WAPO that I hadn’t already read on the NYT. I would like to encourage users who have access to paywalled publications to summarize (or simply extract) the relevant material and post the material with attribution and a link to the source: otherwise the conversation does in its tracks.
06/06/2023 @ 10:08 am
Your comment about the WP article went wild, bursting the column limits on the sidebar I don’t know why that happened, but I edited your comment by inserting the link to the WP into the text. Unfortunately, I don’t think members can do that operation but I will check it out some more I would love to read the article in question but I think we should develop the practice of providing excerpts from the article being cited because everyone doesn’t subscribe to everything.
06/05/2023 @ 12:06 am
I haven’t followed this because at no point did I think that this game of chicken wouldn’t resolve itself before the deadline. It always does.
That being said, I like Bitey’s analysis here. And I have no more patience with current journalism than Alan does.
Sorry I’m not signed in normally. I’m on a new device and passwords haven’t all moved over.
06/06/2023 @ 1:07 pm
Bitey:
Spot on…
Alan:
I’ve been lamenting the state of so-called American Journalism for years…
I agree with your assessment…
06/06/2023 @ 6:38 pm
Thanks, Ron. I do love this scene so!
06/06/2023 @ 2:49 pm
If I get started on the state of American journalism, we may be here for a while. I’ll end up going through my spiel about how they’re not the Fourth Estate and why I prefer sports journalists to political journalists.
06/06/2023 @ 4:11 pm
Sports journalists write about things that have actually happened that we actually got to see happening, or things that are about to happen that then actually happen. Mainstream journalists are now telling us about things that might or might not have happened, or might or might not happen. Too much wiggle room there.
06/06/2023 @ 9:27 pm
Not my reason. The reason I like sports journalists better than political journalists is that to sports journalists the most important thing is always the integrity of the game. In politics, the integrity of the game is way more critical and yet political journalists so often ignore that in favor of scorekeeping, which sports journalists are of course adept at. If political journalists acted like sports journalists, Trump would never have had a shot in 2016.