I'm feeling like a whole lot of "no" these days when it comes to these Republican Terrorists and both the shutdown and the debt ceiling debacle.
The piece of you-know-what Republican Party and the ball-less Boehner have put a BIG contingency on the debt ceiling increase that they are proposing. Alone, that contingency should scuttle this deal, but there are more reasons to tell these clowns to go pound sand.
My reasoning is below the fold.
Reason One - the Republicans are proposing what they are calling a "clean" increase to the debt ceiling through November 22 2013 (yeah - a few weeks). We'll be right back where we are today in under six weeks, immediately before the holidays start.
Reason Two - As if the shortness of this increase wasn't bad enough, gird your loins - According to The Wall Street Journal:
The plan would seek to tie the Treasury's hands in extending how long it can operate without an additional debt-ceiling increase by terminating the so-called extraordinary measures that could allow the Treasury Department to go past the six-week deadline.
Let that sink in for a moment.
The Republicans are basically demanding that Treasury cede power and abrogate their duty to the American economy with this jerk-off move.
At a very high level - "extraordinary measures" are used to give the Treasury more time to pay US debt obligations when there is a debt ceiling impasse. At a more granular level, the Department of the Treasury describes them as this (PDF):
The extraordinary measures currently available are: (1) suspending sales of State and Local Government Series Treasury securities; (2) determining that a “debt issuance suspension period” exists, which permits the redemption of existing, and the suspension of new, investments of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and the Postal Service Retirees Health Benefit Fund; (3) suspending reinvestment of the Government Securities Investment Fund and (4) suspending reinvestment of the Exchange Stabilization Fund. These measures are described in more detail below.
These extraordinary measures, all of which have been employed during previous debt
limit impasses, have the effect of creating or conserving headroom beneath the debt limit. These measures are limited and therefore can postpone only briefly the need for an increase in the statutory debt limit. On average, the public debt of the United States is increasing by approximately $100 billion per month (although there are significant variations from month to month). In total, the extraordinary measures currently available free up approximately $200 billion in headroom under the limit, as described below.
There is an even lengthier explanation at the link. Suffice it to say that the contingency Republicans are attaching to the so-called "clean" debt ceiling increase is untenable. It would remove Treasury's ability to work around their idiocy when - inevitably - these fucking buffoons will bring us to this point again. And again.
Moreover - the kicker they've added to the debt ceiling increase constitutes "negotiating on the debt ceiling", and we're not going to do that. We shouldn't do that.
Reason Three - the shutdown continues. Defunding/delaying/altering the Affordable Care Act is still a central focus of the shutdown. Not two days ago, President Obama made clear:
President Barack Obama is ready to talk even on Republicans' terms, he insisted Tuesday, so long as Congress acts first to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling -- even for a short period.
Ready to talk
after Congress votes to pass a budget that ends the shutdown AND raises the debt ceiling. Per the Wall Street Journal article linked above, the shutdown continues. Condition not met.
Reason Four - These assclowns are always going to do something like this if we let them constantly get away with ridiculous demands. They're like a small child, only not as smart. You don't negotiate with your four year old. She doesn't get to grab things off the shelf in the grocery store, throw them on the ground, and then turn around and tell you that she'll stop as long as you buy her a candy bar. If you buy her the candy bar just to decrease your own personal stress level while in the store, she'll always grab stuff because she's always rewarded for grabbing stuff.
That analogy may seem far-fetched - but it really isn't. The fact that you don't just grab stuff in a store - that it's not acceptable - doesn't require an explanation. It just is what it is. You keep the Federal government funded because you do. You raise the debt ceiling because you have to. There's no negotiation around those two items.
The Republicans are currently sitting in the middle of a pile of groceries in the aisle of the store, screaming their head off. It's time for us to tell them that we're leaving, they won't get a candy bar, and if they don't want to be left, they best get their ass up and get in the damned car.
And Finally - it's time to really, truly break the backs of these Teahadists. While agencies have been able to keep critical functions afloat during the shutdown, the reduction in their staff will cause a curtailing of the services they provide to citizens to hit very, very soon. The VA says:
If the shutdown doesn't end soon, the Veterans Affairs (VA) Department won't be able to ensure that checks go out on Nov. 1 for 5.18 million beneficiaries, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki told House Veterans' Affairs Committee. That amounts to $6.25 billion in payments that VA beneficiaries are expecting.
States are running out of WIC funding. Some states have been able to fill the gap the shutdown has created, but they're running out of funds. Countless other impacts are looming as those left to do the people's business are running out of cycles.
We need to crush these people, politically speaking.
In part, that can only be accomplished by telling them to stick their debt ceiling offer up their ass and whistle Dixie, and in part it's by holding the line as Democrats on all of these efforts to fund those items that become politically hot. As I said in my diary yesterday, we should NOT capitulate on these mini-CRs. When we do, we essentially are allowing the Republicans to choose what parts of the government they like and save face with their constituents, and we're handing them leverage to continue the insanity.
We also need to be WAY out in front of this debt ceiling issue. The curtailing of Treasury's ability to use extraordinary measures is a deal-breaker, and the Presdient and top Democrats need to - right now - find a way to boil down a complex technical financial maneuver into how it affects the average American and the overall economy and get out there - right now - and make their case.
For this and so many other reasons - the Republicans need to go fuck themselves. End the Teahidist seige of the Federal Government and Congress. Open the Government. Raise the damned debt ceiling. Then crawl back in the hole you came out of.
Edited to add: Marcos has a diary up graphically showing how badly the Republican "brand" is faring in all of this. All the more reason hold the line and demand they fully capitulate with no negotiations.