Republican lawmakers have been remarkably blasé about the damage they are threatening to do, as they get ready to push the button that will blast the American and world economies into massive and destructive turmoil. By refusing to raise the debt ceiling, perhaps in an effort to deprive President Obama of any and every political gain, or to prove an ideological point, Republicans are showing once again how divorced they are from the real harm their policies will engender. Hundreds of millions of people around the world will be hurt by the federal government defaulting on its debt payments, and yet somehow the Republicans can see no further than the confines of their petty political fortunes.
Having backed themselves into a narrow government-hating ideological corner, now cemented into dogma by the ravings of their tea-party enablers, conservative lawmakers no longer have a choice in the matter. They either stand together as one we’re-not-going-to-take-it-any-more, tax-cutting, government-strangling bunch of refuseniks, or they’ll be branded liberals and voted off the island.
Meanwhile, these lawmakers have lost touch with the fact that their actions impact the fortunes of so many people, not just the three-hundred million or so Americans whose net worths would diminish by billions should the government go into default. Republicans seem utterly unconcerned with the seriousness and gravity that comes with their power to wreak economic havoc on the world.
And what they’re doing verges on madness. How would you feel if the captain of your ship announced over the public address that he has a bomb in the hold and he’s mulling over whether to press the button? Even if he didn’t “really” mean it, he’d be instantly relieved of duty. Yet somehow Republican leaders who blithely threaten to do no less damage, whether they mean it or not, remain unchallenged.
Is it because we are so confused about economics that we allow these blackmailers to get away with threatening to sink the ship of state? There’s no need to be confused about the economic impact of a government default – it’s bad for just about everyone. In fact, the net loss to the U.S. economy from the effects of the Republicans’ threatened default could easily equal a major fraction of a year’s worth of federal tax revenues. How dumb is that?
Do we tolerate this because we’ve all come to agree with conservatives that government is irredeemably corrupt? Republican lawmakers seem hell-bent on corrupting the government to prove themselves right. Is this any way to run a country? Do we really want people like this handling the delicate affairs of governance with the welfare of so many people hanging in the balance?
One thing seems certain. If the Republicans follow through on their threats to force the government into default and government services begin to shut down, stocks and bonds become unstable and values plummet, inflation ticks up, the dollar drops, and we slide back into recession or worse, we will at least have an opportunity (and probably more time on our hands than we’d like) to consider whether the conservative indictment of government is valid.
I suspect we will look with nostalgia on the bygone days of “the Nanny State.” It is said you never know how much you love someone until they’re gone, and we will realize too late that our so-called nanny, in spite of her flaws, was actually pretty good at keeping our fractious house in order.