The Washington Debt Follies

And no one wants to deal with the really tough stuff: defence spending that not even the Pentagon wants, closing down the over 800 bases we have around the world, turning off the spigot we call foreign aid and everyone else knows is just bribes. There are all kinds of dents we could make in spending and God knows plenty of places where we could income streams adjusted. But to do that? My god, it's socialism!!

LOL

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Thing is, we *do* have to deal with it, no matter where it came from or whose fault it might be. It's a lot of money, and just raising it doesnt address the problem, it just shoves it down the road a ways. So how far do we go before we get serious about it? Fifty trillion? A hundred?

And no, I dont think either party has been exactly stellar in its handling of this. It's like really bad DC theatre, without the music or costumes.

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Updated On: 7/31/11 at 09:11 PM

What the media is totally ignoring is the fact that this 'crisis' is self-inflicted by the far right. Raising the debt limit has been done routinely for almost 100 years; NEVER has it been used a cudgel by either party. For some reason, the media has been acting like it's business as usual to tie conditions and cuts to this process.

Even given this unique scenario, as the deadline has approached and many have moved toward compromise, the extreme right fringe in this House is moving further right, and dragging Boehner along with them.

No one from either party has shown any real leadership here, and they have all acted in a manner that is detrimental to our country. I can't think of anyone who deserves to be re-elected after this.

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You know what floors me? Here's the thing - there is no such thing as money. There is no such thing as finance. All we're doing is playing with/trading/putting value on imaginary numbers on a piece of paper that people make up. Nothing costs anything. It's all a big game of make believe. Humans have created the problems that we have for ourselves. And frankly, I personally have no ties to Washington, DC, and have never personally done business with China, Japan, Germany, or any other foreign country. If people in Washington who make these big business deals are the ones who have driven us into "debt" by borrowing money from other countries, then I think the people in Washington should personally be held responsible for paying back the other countries, not the taxpayers. It's not our fault for this mess.

Maybe it's time to look at another form of trade/business rather than the American dollar. And maybe it's time to look at another form of Government than the one we currently have, which is...apparently....not working very well.

I am so tired of my posts disappearing.

I basically said in part what MB said.

Or, just read the Shock Doctrine.

It's worth noting that John McCain has reverted back to being a grown up, pushing back against the far right wing of the GOP.

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Here's a great op-ed piece about it.
"Congress is doing exactly what it was elected to do."

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At the end of the day, the cuts are going to hit the same people who've been the victims of the last decade of abusive policies - the lower and middle classes. These cuts will INCREASE unemployment, and increase the wealth gap even further. They should all be ashamed of themselves, and we should be ashamed for allowing this political environment to foment.

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I just finished reading the details over at Huffington. What a complete and utter joke. Right now, I am so glad I have dual citizenship so I can get out of the idiotic country at a moment's notice.

I'll be curious to see what the CBC and the Progressives say about this. It doesnt look like Pelosi is gonna work all that hard at securing votes for this mess, and despite Reid's pronouncements, it looks like the Senate may have pretty serious doubts about it as well.

The only bright spot for the moment is that the dollar seems to be holding value, but I suspect that may change if there's any recalcitrance in Congress and the deal falls through.

Interesting times, indeed.

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The mildly ironic thing about this is that the GOP allowed it. Here they thought they were getting a whole buncha new minions, and instead they're getting their national party @sses handed to them by this, yes, tiny minority that seems to have everyone else scared to death.

There's a few historical precedents for this. None of them are good.

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Hopefully, people are now gonna realize that the Tea Party isn't a party that everyone is invited to. They are, and always were, a construct by some of the wealthiest behind-the-scene people in the country.

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I, unlike the Tea Partiers who hate America and see nothing but dark days ahead, think that America can do anything it puts its mind to. Republicans DO NOT want budget surpluses- they want deficits so they can demand government be shrunk down so it can be drowned in a bathtub. When we DID have a surplus (only 10 years ago) they were so horrified they GAVE IT AWAY-- remember all those checks for $300 a person until it was all gone?

If you returned tax rates to what they were under Clinton, we could pay this debt down in a decade- not that we want to, but we could. Go back to the tax rates of the 50's and we'd have to build warehouses to store all the surplus.