Now that this contrived debt ceiling debacle is over or close to over, we will undoubtedly be hearing how Obama is playing chess and his opponents are playing checkers. That is all fine and good until you consider that the game being played is actually fucking checkers.
The President is clearly the smartest guy in the debate. Listening to McConnell, Boehner, Cantor et al., I'm often amazed that they graduated high school, let alone found their way to the positions they are in. Yet time and again, they outmaneuver the much smarter President because, while they don't know much, but they do know one thing: the President desperately wants to be "the adult in the room" and will do ANYTHING to seem reasonable. So like a pack of 5 years old, the Republicans remain obstinate until the parent in the supermarket caves and gives into her tantrum throwing children's wishes and buys them the bag of candy.
Cutting spending in the current economic environment is simply insane. It will hurt the economy in the short term, it will hurt the economy in the long term. Every rational economist agrees. Yet these economists, no matter how many Nobel Prizes they have collectively won, are dismissed as shrill, while the morons or liars who claim the economy of the U.S. is directly analogous to a family's budget are hailed as "experts" and "very serious people".
Short-term government spending in a recession is not only not a problem, it's the solution. Period. End of story. The U.S. has the ability to borrow at very low interest rates. And money should be borrowed and invested in the nation's crumbling infrastructure. This spending creates jobs, which creates consumer spending, which creates business investment, which leads to more jobs and so on. This economic expansion leads to increased government revenues which leads to reduced government debt. And as an added bonus, this investment improves the nation's competitiveness in the world economy.
Yet the President insists on playing the game on Republican turf (checkers) rather than on his own (chess). And the Republicans keep changing the game so that he's not even playing on their turf, he's playing to the right of their turf. And the game isn't even checkers anymore but a contest of who can roll around in a pile of shit and emerge smelling the least putrid. And in this game, everyone and everything - even the "adult in the room" - ends up smelling like shit.