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One of the most critical political issues confronting the U.S. Congress right now is something that has never been a political issue before, is universally recognized by every economically literate member of our society to be something that should never be made into a political issue, and yet has become one due the willingness of one ideologically fanatical faction that is gaining increasing political control in this country to blackmail the non-fanatical majority with complete self-destruction unless the latter gives in to the former’s demands. That is the current state of our country.
The issue to which I’m referring is whether to raise the debt ceiling. In fact, the United States is alone among developed nations to have such a provision, the existence of a debt ceiling and the necessity to vote to raise it, because it would be inconceivable not to, and as a result default on the nation’s financial obligations and destroy the nation’s credit ranking. One frequent poster on Colorado Pols offered some historical insight into this “archaic and useless” bit of legislative baggage: http://coloradopols.com/diary/15729/the-debt-ceiling-is-archaic-and-useless.
It is worthwhile to read and listen to some summaries of what the actual effects of failing to raise the debt ceiling would be. Here is Tresury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s response to Senator Michael Bennet’s query on that subject: http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_18066294. And here is a particularly cogent round table discussion, in which all experts from all ideological camps agree with Giethner’s assessment: http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/roundtable-economic-outlook-13607093. Notice, despire the universal agreement among all economic experts, from all ideological camps, concerning how devasting this would be to the U.S., that Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado Springs, CO), quoted in the first article linked to above, said, defending the fact that he has never voted to raise the debt ceiling and never will, “These proclamations and threats mean nothing to me.”
It is a tragic irony that the worst of our catastrophes, the greater part of humanity’s suffering, is inflicted on humanity by humanity itself. The genocides are what underscore this point most emphatically, but the political blackmail that the far-right is now engaged in, while a subtler example, is perhaps a more salient one, for it underscores how ordinary our self-inflicted suffering really is, how easy to avoid, and how easy not to. We have just seen in America the sudden effervensence of a political movement that is based on reducing everything to a few populist platitudes, and the introduction to Congress of some phenomenally unprepared and incompetent representatives who have promised to remain completely faithful to this increasingly institutionalized ignorance.
Now, despite absolute certainty that it would destroy us fiscally and economically, propelling us and the rest of the world into an economic crisis possibly as deep and sustained as The Great Depression itself, these agents of self-destructive stupidity are blackmailing everyone who has an ounce of sense or responsibility that unless they cave in to the economically and socially illiterate demands of this new movement, their newly elected agents will destroy the nation’s economy completely.
Okay, folks. You’ve had your fun. Enough’s enough. Give us our moderately rational, somewhat pragmatic, not entirely insane nation back again. Okay?
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