Our fathers gave us many laws, which they had learned from their fathers. Those laws were good. They told us to treat all men as they treated us, that we should never be the first to break a bargain, that it was a disgrace to tell a lie, that we should only speak the truth.
Chief Joseph, Nez Perce, 1840-1904
Chief Joseph had more wisdom in his little finger than exists in our entire government IMO. As for the question posed in my title, let's dispense with option three right off the bat. That was my idea of a joke. Gallows humor I suppose.
Chief Joseph tells us that it is a disgrace to tell a lie. And our government has piled up such a mighty mountain of lies since the days when it was signing and breaking treaties with the Native Americans that the shame alone should be enough to kill us all. Yet we linger on...for now.
Both parties, both houses and the White House have all embraced austerity on the brink of a world-wide depression. Can they really be that stupid? Or is it something else? You'd think they never heard of John Maynard Keynes.
A core principle of Keynesian economics is that you don't cut spending in a recession, you increase it. It is economic suicide to do otherwise.
Richard Nixon famously said, “We're all Keynesians now.” Even his feeble grasp on economic wisdom seems profound compared to our current crop of fiendish greedheads.
This austerity assault on the American people is just unbelievable to those of us in the ranks of the long-term unemployed, and all the others struggling desperately to keep it together. No one in Washington is thinking about us. We can't pay the price of admission, therefore we don't matter.
No one is thinking about the poor, the elderly, the needy, the sick. Only the wealthiest of the wealthy count anymore. And even they are likely to lose on this idiotic deal. Even some of the calmer heads (if that can be said) among the elite are beginning to wonder WTF is going on.
Spending cuts to whack economy?
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- If the debt ceiling goes up, government spending is most likely going down.
And with the economy grinding to a halt, the timing couldn't be worse.
Gee, ya think? And yet the elite 1%, the ultra rich, seem to have fallen under the spell of Grover Norquist and the Tea Party (which is to say the Koch brothers). It's bad enough that our government has completely sold us out, but what's worse, they have sold us out to madmen who are perfectly willing to crash the economy of the entire world to get their way. What's worse, their way is to crush all the rest of us. And it's all based on a pack of lies.
The 6 Biggest Lies About the U.S. Debt
There is one simple truth about the discussion of the looming U.S. debt crisis: it is largely a compendium of half-truths, distortions, myths and outright lies.
This assault on our economy, our jobs and our social safety net, which democrats have fought and died for, would never be accepted from a republican president. I don't know what makes it acceptable now.