I’m sure you remember the horrors inflicted on America last August by Tea Party members of Congress who held the nation’s debt ceiling hostage in an attempt to slash government spending. The government came within a hair of closing down. Government issued checks (such as Social Security) were in danger of being held back. When the dust finally settled, the nation’s credit rating was lowered, making it more expensive for the government to borrow money.
Now, House Speaker John Boehner is threatening to do it again!
What could he be thinking? Polls showed that the last debt ceiling crisis severely damaged the public’s respect for Congress, and especially for the Republicans who precipitated the crisis. Surely, it would be political suicide for Republicans to cause another stalemate? Surely, they would pay the price at the polls in November?
I don’t think the Republicans see it that way.
They might figure that any damage their party suffers would be worth it because a debt ceiling crisis would torpedo the U.S. economy, and President Obama would get the blame. They believe voters would punish the president and his Democrats for the country’s economic woes.
With the American electorate not only uninformed but largely misinformed, it’s easy for the Republican propaganda machine to twist the truth. That’s probably why the president tends to get the blame for just about everything that goes wrong. He was blamed for rising gasoline prices, for example, when he obviously had no control over the international oil market. I bet there are some voters who hold him responsible for Europe’s economic problems. They don’t seem to know or care how things work in this world. And the Republican noise machine is always ready to provide them with false facts.
So brace yourself for another nerve-wracking debt ceiling debacle.
That’s how the Tea Party operates – something like those Islamic suicide bombers who are willing to blow themselves up if they can take out some infidels as well. They’re willing to suffer for their cause.
The cause?
They want to drastically shrink the federal government – “starve the beast,” they call it – in an effort to transfer power to the states. As the recent spate of abortion legislation passed by Republican legislatures across the land illustrates, they would then find it much easier to implement their retroactive agenda. Reform tends to be more feasible at the federal level. I don’t think the civil rights revolution would have been possible, for example, without a strong central government.
To accomplish this transfer of power, the Republicans are prepared to cause irreparable damage to the nation – and the world.
We can only pray that enough voters will see what they’re up to and reject their diabolical agenda at the polls.
