The Shutdown, the Default, and the Fallout
So . . .
Encouraged by the Tea Party Republicans in the House and Senate, the GOP caucus decided to annul the 2012 Presidential election (oh yes, and overturn the outcome of the Civil War - by the way, the North won that, you degenerate neo-Confederate traitorous bastards) and hold the government hostage.
They did this by allowing the government to partially shut down, putting some 800,000 workers out of their jobs. The hostage-taking, dear readers, comes with their ransom demand: They'll restart the government IF the President and the Democrats agree to do away with the signature domestic legislative achievement of Obama's administration; viz., the Affordable Care Act.
Naturally, the Democrats said, "Fuck you."
Which somehow resulted in Senator Rafael Cruz (R-Texas, and don't let that scumbag bluff you into thinking his actual name's 'Ted') spending 21 hours spouting, among other things, Green Eggs and Ham.
He missed the point about that, by the way - the point of the Dr. Seuss story was that after the guy tried the green eggs and ham, he liked it.
Just like Obamacare. The shutdown didn't stop its implementation, and so many people tried to get into it that the website crashed, hard.
Of course, as everyone knows, having a lot of people trying to use a website is a sure indication that no-one likes it.
Now, later this very month, we're in danger of hitting the debt limit. This is kind of a big thing, not just for the Nasty Evil Gummint that the Tea Party Shitheads inveigh about, but for wider, global reasons.
See, the US Dollar is the world's reserve currency. It's the currency everyone invests in when their own economy starts to go on the skids. The reason that it's considered a safe haven is that the US Dollar is backed by the "Full Faith and Credit" of the United States. The United States has never defaulted on its debts, you see - part of that is the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which states that nothing stops the public debt from being honored.
Over the years, there have been threats against the debt limit, protest votes and such, but in all cases the debt limit's been increased. It was raised 17 times under Reagan, and 7 times under Bush the Imbecile.
But as soon as Obama became President, holding the government and the United States (and the world) hostage to the debt limit became a Thing.
So what happens if we default on our debt? I hear the Tea Party ask. Fuck the rest of the world, right? We got ours, screw the rest of them.
Wrong.
Our honoring our debt and having other countries have confidence in the dollar as a reserve currency enables us to borrow money at rock-bottom prices. A default would mean that we couldn't, which would cause people to lose faith in the dollar as a reserve currency. Which, according to economists (even the assholes on Fox Business Channel), would cripple the US economy - and we're only just now starting to get things going again.
It would also damage the global economy, which leads me to The Fallout.
For starters, the economy would take a bigger hit - a lot of the gains we've made would be erased. The world, finding our credit besmirched by a radical faction within our own government, would find other secure havens as a reserve currency (to our detriment), and many of the people who voted for these dingbats would get a lot poorer very quickly.
Politically, we're already seeing a shift. Polls (which always follow the electorate; they don't lead it) are showing a distinct increase in unfavorable ratings for many of the Republicans. It will only take a flip of 17 seats in the 2014 by-elections to move the House of Representatives back into Democratic control, the prospect of which must keep Speaker John Boehner (R-OHmygodwhere'smydrink) waking up in a flop sweat every godsdamned night.
This is where we're at right now. Our government is under siege from within, with the Speaker too spineless to stand up to the eighty Tea Party members of his Party. Said Tea Party asses are giddily masturbating at the prospect of finally destroying the government that destroyed their neat, clean Confederate world 148 years ago. The extremely rich motherfuckers who are the shadowy eminences grise of the Tea Party are licking their lips at the prospect of getting even richer at the expense of the useful idiots who voted their catspaws into office.
And the rest of us? What are we going to do about this?
Encouraged by the Tea Party Republicans in the House and Senate, the GOP caucus decided to annul the 2012 Presidential election (oh yes, and overturn the outcome of the Civil War - by the way, the North won that, you degenerate neo-Confederate traitorous bastards) and hold the government hostage.
They did this by allowing the government to partially shut down, putting some 800,000 workers out of their jobs. The hostage-taking, dear readers, comes with their ransom demand: They'll restart the government IF the President and the Democrats agree to do away with the signature domestic legislative achievement of Obama's administration; viz., the Affordable Care Act.
Naturally, the Democrats said, "Fuck you."
Which somehow resulted in Senator Rafael Cruz (R-Texas, and don't let that scumbag bluff you into thinking his actual name's 'Ted') spending 21 hours spouting, among other things, Green Eggs and Ham.
He missed the point about that, by the way - the point of the Dr. Seuss story was that after the guy tried the green eggs and ham, he liked it.
Just like Obamacare. The shutdown didn't stop its implementation, and so many people tried to get into it that the website crashed, hard.
Of course, as everyone knows, having a lot of people trying to use a website is a sure indication that no-one likes it.
Now, later this very month, we're in danger of hitting the debt limit. This is kind of a big thing, not just for the Nasty Evil Gummint that the Tea Party Shitheads inveigh about, but for wider, global reasons.
See, the US Dollar is the world's reserve currency. It's the currency everyone invests in when their own economy starts to go on the skids. The reason that it's considered a safe haven is that the US Dollar is backed by the "Full Faith and Credit" of the United States. The United States has never defaulted on its debts, you see - part of that is the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which states that nothing stops the public debt from being honored.
Over the years, there have been threats against the debt limit, protest votes and such, but in all cases the debt limit's been increased. It was raised 17 times under Reagan, and 7 times under Bush the Imbecile.
But as soon as Obama became President, holding the government and the United States (and the world) hostage to the debt limit became a Thing.
So what happens if we default on our debt? I hear the Tea Party ask. Fuck the rest of the world, right? We got ours, screw the rest of them.
Wrong.
Our honoring our debt and having other countries have confidence in the dollar as a reserve currency enables us to borrow money at rock-bottom prices. A default would mean that we couldn't, which would cause people to lose faith in the dollar as a reserve currency. Which, according to economists (even the assholes on Fox Business Channel), would cripple the US economy - and we're only just now starting to get things going again.
It would also damage the global economy, which leads me to The Fallout.
For starters, the economy would take a bigger hit - a lot of the gains we've made would be erased. The world, finding our credit besmirched by a radical faction within our own government, would find other secure havens as a reserve currency (to our detriment), and many of the people who voted for these dingbats would get a lot poorer very quickly.
Politically, we're already seeing a shift. Polls (which always follow the electorate; they don't lead it) are showing a distinct increase in unfavorable ratings for many of the Republicans. It will only take a flip of 17 seats in the 2014 by-elections to move the House of Representatives back into Democratic control, the prospect of which must keep Speaker John Boehner (R-OHmygodwhere'smydrink) waking up in a flop sweat every godsdamned night.
This is where we're at right now. Our government is under siege from within, with the Speaker too spineless to stand up to the eighty Tea Party members of his Party. Said Tea Party asses are giddily masturbating at the prospect of finally destroying the government that destroyed their neat, clean Confederate world 148 years ago. The extremely rich motherfuckers who are the shadowy eminences grise of the Tea Party are licking their lips at the prospect of getting even richer at the expense of the useful idiots who voted their catspaws into office.
And the rest of us? What are we going to do about this?
posted by Walt at 12:37 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home