Party Like its 1937

I’ve often said that a good president is one ready and willing to piss people off on both sides of the aisle. So maybe Obama’s attempts to reach a compromise with the Republicans on budget cuts and tax increases in order to raise the debt ceiling is not like Charley Brown expecting Lucy to hold the football. Maybe he is going out on a limb to prevent an economic disaster. He must be aware of the parallels with FDR, who cut back on New Deal spending in 1937 to bring the budget back in line, only to see the country start slipping back into recession. Obama must be familiar with economists such as Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong, who are saying that contractionary fiscal policy now will only aggravate future debt problems.

The GOP might talk a lot about jobs, but they’re killing them. Here in Texas the Republican governor and legislature refused to fix the structural deficit caused by their property tax cuts and the loophole-ridden business tax that was supposed to make up the lost revenue, and passed a bare-bones budget that will cost 100,000 schoolteachers their jobs and put tens of thousands of state employees out of work.

And the teabaggers are all against raising the debt limit. I heard them at Pete Olson’s town hall meeting, as I’m sure he did, from the sound of him pledging allegiance to the Paul Ryan budget plan. But those tea-nuts are mostly older retirement-aged folks; what are they going to do when their Social Security checks are late, when Medicare doesn’t pay their doctor bills? They’ve got this cognitive dissonance going, like “keep government out of my Medicare.”

Here’s what business writer Loren Steffy says will happen if the Congress lets the treasury run dry:

“Soaring interest rates — think 30 percent or more - that would crush U.S. households, and make homes and cars unaffordable, plunging those industries back into chaos.

“Further devaluing of the dollar, causing the price of petroleum products from gasoline to diapers to skyrocket even as oil-exporting countries abandon the dollar as a reserve currency.

“A Black Monday-style stock market collapse that would wipe out whatever savings Americans managed to salvage from the recession.

“Scores of small businesses, already struggling to find access to capital, wiped out because what loans are available will be too expensive for many to afford.

“And widespread job cuts as a result of plunging consumer demand and sky-high interest rates.

“Unable to borrow, the U.S. would be powerless to shield companies or individuals from the ferocity of the economic crisis. At least we couldn't complain about bailouts. The government wouldn't have the money to pay for them, but it wouldn't matter. The economic instability that is likely to follow default is the kind that causes nations to collapse.”

-That’s what these ass-hats in Washington are playing with. Think it might be worth your time to call or write your representatives and tell them play time is over? Here’s a link: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtmlI’