This article is a few days old, but interesting for its suggestion that America’s pensions, not her debt payments, are at risk in a debt ceiling default. The full article can be seen here.
Whether you believe Lawrence O’Donell is correct or not in his rope-a-dope argument, you can add The Economist to the list of conservative “intellectuals” showing more than a little bit of skepticism with today’s Republican party. In what seems like a very strong echo of Brooks comment that the GOP was “no longer a normal party,” they write:
Republicans are pushing things too far. Talks with the administration ground to a halt last month, despite an offer from the Democrats to cut at least $2 trillion and possibly much more out of the budget over the next ten years. … The sticking-point is not on the spending side. It is because the vast majority of Republicans, driven on by the wilder-eyed members of their party and the cacophony of conservative media, are clinging to the position that not a single cent of deficit reduction must come from a higher tax take. This is economically illiterate and disgracefully cynical.
While The Economist says both parties share blame for not making the necessary deal, they make no mistake about who they see as responsible for default, if it should happen:
the blame falls clearly on the Republicans. Independent voters should take note.”
Nudging independent voters not to vote GOP is certainly an interesting stance coming from then, but the Golden Nugget of this brief article is that it says something that I have not heard before, that in the event of a default, it is possible that creditors will be paid but that pensions at are risk:
“the country will have to stop paying someone: perhaps pensioners, or government suppliers, or soldiers.”
Hmmm… is this what the GOP is after in pushing a default? We have seen this pattern in Wisconsin and Michigan -- that an economic crisis created by Holy Untouchable Tax Cuts For the Rich gets so bad that we have no options but to look at our labor agreements. Now we have the excuse of the debt ceiling to play this out on a national scale.
I realize today that I have been laboring under a perhaps false delusion that in the event of a default it would be our payments to creditors that would be affected, and that Wall Street and the GOP Corporate Masters did not want default because of risks to their portfolios. However, nothing is more dangerous then unquestioned assumptions, and today I have to question whether default is in fact the goal so that we can once again be sold on the need to pick apart our labor agreements on a nation level.
Personally, I don’t believe the rope a dope argument. I think Obama was sincere in negotiating his Grand Bargain, and it was not a rouse, even as Mitch McConnell would seem to argue that it was. I think in the event of a default that Obama will only be in a weaker negotiating position because of the urgency of coming to an agreement, and that the “solutions” we will be left with might make us nostalgic for COLA adjustments.
Like the economist, I place the blame on the GOP, not Obama for causing this crisis, and I think their plan is to use engineered crisis to come after workers – they have done it before. Cynical indeed, and disgraceful for sure -- however today’s GOP has shown no concern whatsoever for appearing to be any of these things.
What seems obvious is that this is a crisis engineered by the GOP to serve the purposes of their “wilder-eyed” members, not a situation engineered by the White House to paint the GOP as crazy. Obama has very little to gain from this situation, unless he emerges with the GOPs support for a clean bill. If that is his strategy, that seems to me like a Hail Mary play in response to a planned and coordinated offensive by an immoral and out of control party taken over by it’s most dangerous and destructive elements – elements that have alienated even core supporters of the conservative movement.