Cross-posted on STL:
I've been thinking a lot about this debt ceiling debate. I believe that the Republicans, or at least the Tea Party caucus, don't want to raise the debt ceiling because they want the United States to default on its debts. These people hate government with a passion that defies rational explanation. They consider it evil, a demon to be vanquished. What better way than by bankrupting it? If the US can't borrow more money it will have little choice but to slash government services to the bone, and then we can all hold hands and skip happily into a glorious libertarian future of rugged self-sufficiency. Or at least that's the idea.
Of course, the experienced politicians in the GOP know this is folly. They understand that a US default could have a catastrophic effect on the already-anemic economy. Boehner certainly doesn't want that. He just wanted to beat his chest and rattle his sword and then, when the fun was over, get down to the business of hammering out a deal. The problem is that last Fall his party elected some 100 or so Tea Party candidates, strict ideologues -- zealots, really -- with no sense of perspective for whom the very idea of "compromise" is anathema. To them politics is not a game. With the single-minded determination that only the truly deluded or the truly stupid can bring to bear, they mean to bring government to its knees. The GOP fanned the Tea Party flames, and now the fire threatens to burn down the forest.
I don't seriously think this will happen. I think in the end they'll do what they always do -- wait until the eleventh hour and then cobble together a half-assed solution that lets us limp forward for another few months until the next Big Crisis. But I have to admit a part of me wants to just let the debt ceiling expire and see what happens. Yeah, maybe we'll default on our debts. Maybe we'll lose our AAA credit rating. Maybe, as the worst of the doomsayers predict, the entire world economy will come tumbling down like a house of cards. But is that such a bad thing? Is the status quo really so great that we must protect it at all costs?
Most of us agree that the system is horribly flawed. Barack Obama ran on a platform of "change," but the truth is that few people on either side are happy with things the way they are. Everyone wants change, but as the last two and a half years have taught us, change is difficult. There are too many powerful entrenched interests working against it for real change to ever happen within the system. So maybe it's time for the system to go.
Yes, it would be scary. Yes, it would be painful. But if we truly want change, maybe this is the way.
What's that they say about living in interesting times?