Debt Limit as Viewed From the Left

”If one message has emerged from the negotiations to raise the debt ceiling, I think it's this: The Republican Party, at least in the House of Representatives, has been captured by far-right ideologues who are either ignorant of, or indifferent to, the practical effect of their insistence on ideological purity. And in doing so, they are putting the economic health of the nation at risk.”
Michael Bard, HuffPo.

This is massively far out of reality. The Democrats who couldn’t pass a budget when they absolutely owned the US Federal Government for two straight years, went ahead and spent 44% above the ability of revenues to cover the cost of their programs. Now they want the credit card limit raised to cover what they already ILLEGALLY spent.

Because the Republicans are putting up a fight, although a wishy-washy one, the Left is accusing them of “putting the economic health of the nation at risk.” The immediate jump is to default and evil ratings companies and for the children, in their effort to gain access to ever more other-people’s-money to spend.

There will be no default unless Obama allows it for political purposes. The interest on the debt is easily paid with existing revenue streams: no default required. No default, no ratings downgrade.

But the outrageous Democrat run-up of spending, ideological spending, could in fact stall out government payments as the bureaucrats try to decide who gets paid what. The logical programs to get stiffed would be the new spending that was rammed through for the first two years of Obamacrats domination in Congress.

No they couldn't do that, that would put the nation’s economic health at risk, by definition.

” I hear a lot about the deficit and the need to cut government spending, but very little about the impact of those spending cuts on real people. Old people. Children. Didn't Charles Dickens write this book? "Are there no prisons... and workhouses?" At the start of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge thought that starvation might be a solution to overpopulation. Is America getting prepared to return to that debate?”
Steven Cohen, HuffPo.

” Tea Party Republicans would rather shred America's safety net and also risk tanking America's economy than raise taxes one penny on their super-wealthy donors and corporate backers.”

(…)

” The stakes are clear: millions of people are now facing catastrophic economic harm, unless Americans stand up and force the GOP to relent in its reckless drive to destroy essential middle class programs.

The GOP is holding the American Dream itself hostage.

If the Republicans carry out their threats, for the first time in history, the greatest nation on Earth will be in default on our obligations.

Defaulting on our debt would be a disaster for our nation -- and for every single American. The jobs of half a million Americans would almost certainly disappear. Loans for college or homes could be almost impossible to get. We might have to stop sending Social Security and Medicare checks to people who need them. Our men and women in uniform could stop getting paychecks.

Worse: our great nation would lose its perfect credit rating. That would add billions of dollars to our deficit because other countries would charge us more interest on our loans.

This is literally insane. And if you are shocked, appalled and outraged, you are not alone. The vast majority of Americans are opposed to the both the goals and the tactics of the Tea Party minority in Congress.”
(…)
Our democracy has been hijacked by a small group of extremists. The American Dream is in peril. It is time for the super-majority of Americans to be superheroes and rescue our economic future.
Van Jones , HuffPo.[emphasis added]

Count the lies in Van Jones message. I get 13 if I let some slide.

”Is it possible that some in the Republican party, and some Tea Party supporters, actually WANT to see America go down?

After all, their money is tied up in gold and silver -- both of which stand to gain from a weakened dollar and reduction of America to "second-class" status among the great economic powers.

America's downfall could be their most lucrative hour. This level of self-interest upsets me. Politicians aren't looking out for your best interests -- they are playing chicken with the financial standing of the U.S.
It's disgusting, frankly.”
David Seaman, Business Insider.

”Unconditional surrender was the Republican demand in the health care debate. That demand led to an unmitigated defeat.

Unconditional surrender has become the Republican demand in the debt demand.
The original Republican plan was to threaten to tip the country into default unless the GOP got everything it wanted. That threat is proving empty, as Republicans' business constituencies mutiny against their party's dangerous tactics.

If blackmail won't work -- and negotiation is not allowed by the party's own taboos -- then the party that asked for everything is on its way to becoming the party that got nothing. Only it's not just the GOP that is the loser. It's the whole country.”
David Frum, CNN.com

I suppose that asking for responsible fiscal policy is in fact an ideology that would be abhorrent to the Dems. Engaging in fiscal responsibility would indeed be seen as unconditional surrender.

"The austerity (but not for wars or Wall Street)-mania would be harmful and right-wing even if the economy were humming along. But you probably know firsthand that we're having a spot of trouble on the economic front, like history-making trouble that's sending analysts back to the nineteen-thirties for precedents. Noting that Goldman Sachs is predicting an unemployment rate of 8.75 % at the end of 2012, Paul Krugman says:

'[T]his really does look like the Lesser Depression, a prolonged era of disastrous economic performance.'

"Yes, it really does, and what should the government be doing about it? Common sense, liberalism, and basic macroeconomics tell us it should increasing spending. Why is government doing the exact opposite? Certainly, it's largely because Wall Street owns Washington. Krugman's (related) explanation is that rich people pursue policies than benefit rich people, and politicians listen to rich people, because they're rich. Like the politicians.

'Mike Konczal ratchets up my rentier argument, arguing that what we’re seeing is a wide refocusing of the mechanisms of our society towards the crucial obsession of oligarchs: wealth and income defense.'

"That has to be right. It doesn’t necessarily take the form of pure cynicism; it’s more a matter of the wealthy gravitating toward views of economic policy that make immediate sense in terms of their own interests, and politicians believing that only these views count as Serious because they’re the views of wealthy people.

"So under cover of a concocted crisis, pols are negotiating over how much spending to cut -- a debate between conservatives and radicals taking place in the sealed-off capitol of a country where poverty and the potential of poverty are, to steal Blow's metaphor, suffocating tens of millions of people. This is a humanitarian catastrophe, and rich politicians are determined to take steps that would make it worse and inflict further pain on Americans.

"Are you pissed off yet?

"If not, why not?"
David Mizner and Charles Blow, Daily Kos.

Yes indeed; we must absolutely hate the rich and their wholly owned pols, those pols who jammed through health care that only the Left wanted, and massive spending with no budget to restrict themselves from their redistribution of other-people's money. Or is that an internal contradiction... why yes it is. Although the readily apparent love affair between the Dem Administration and the Wall Street suits has yet to be fully documented, the contributions from huge corporations to the Dems is a matter of record.

The Left doesn't hate the rich, it uses them. For some reason the opposite story is true: most of the rich (Soros, Gates, Hollywood and TV face plates in general and most of their buddies) support the Left and its programs for spending other-people's money. The very rich loop-hole themselves into freedom from taxation and then join in the scream for higher taxes on everyone else. And they donate to the Democrats who, in actuality, protect them.

But the debate is not about the uber-rich. It is about the small businesses which fall into the Democrats' conception of rich-needing-to-be-taxed-because-we- declare-them-rich-and-unfair. It's a morality play for the benefit of the uber-Left which hates capitalism, and which votes. It's not about the filthy rich at all.