And so the President has to go on television tonight and plead with the American people. Why? Because according to Howard Fineman on MSNBC tonight all that pressure that was expected from Wall Street never materialized. For the past few months, I've been reading confident words from my community to the effect that the Republicans were bluffing and Wall Street would bring them to heel and they would raise the debt ceiling.
That has turned out to be incorrect, as I predicted. That brings me no pleasure and it brings me no pleasure to predict, as I have before, that Republicans in the House will not raise the debt ceiling. Here's why.
Grover Norquist has more representatives in Congress than you or I do. These representatives have signed on to not only a pledge not to raise revenue for the Government (or to close loopholes that would bring in more revenue), but a pledge to shut down government altogether and to drown it in a bathtub so that multinational corporations could operate unfettered in the United States, and would have access to cheap labor, as they do in other countries.
Modern American free marketers have more in common with the Chinese capitalist dictatorship than they do with Ronald Reagan. They think Democracy is in the way. A government of the people, by the people and for the people impinges on their ability to tromp freely around the world, trampling rights, destroying environments, and destroying governments.
They've done it elsewhere. President Obama continues to act as if he is not dealing with thugs. He is. There is nothing he can say and there is nothing he can do to make them raise the debt ceiling.
They see their goal in sight: The destruction of this Presidency and the destruction of government. It is false to assume that Wall Street will stop this. Wall Street hasn't stopped this. Why? Because they want Obama out and a Republican president in. They know any loss of capital is temporary. Once America is a serfdom, it will be worth a lot more on the worldwide market.
There can be no balanced approach here. This is war. It is a world war. It is democracy against multinationals that know no government, respect no government and will bring down any government that gets in their way.
The Republicans in the House of Representatives are their representatives. They will NOT raise the debt ceiling.
8:42 PM PT: Afterthought: Did you you all notice that the House of Representatives pulled funding for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)? The immediate effect was the FAA wasn't able to collect taxes on airline tickets, which would have reduced the price of such tickets. Airlines just as quickly RAISED their prices to collect the amount that would have gone to the government. House Republicans think that if they starve the government, business may actually profit. They will not raise the debt ceiling.