Thursday, October 10, 2013

I Got Them Debt Ceiling, Continuing Resolution, Budget Stupidity Blues Again, Momma

I guess it's pretty obvious that I hate blogging about what's going on in congress right now regarding the twin crises of the government shutdown and the worry over passing a debt ceiling increase. I try not to go several days without blogging, but this one topic actually sends me staring at my computer in a kind of fugue state, just completely wishing the whole sad state of affairs would resolve itself without my feeling arsed to remark upon it. 

You'd think I'd find the spectacle of Tea Party troglodytes fumbling about in front of cameras trying to simultaneously sell the shutdown and a possible debt default as a big enough deal to ensure they get their way (but what they'll get, they just don't know) but also, something that would be not so bad, maybe even better for the country, a target-rich opportunity for snark and hijinks at the expense of people so damn dumb that they don't seem to know what the debt ceiling is, or how government is funded, or what bills it pays, or like, what their own job is. I should be slinging arrows of barbed wit at someone who froths that the ACA is somehow more destructive to America than what the House Republicans are doing right now. 

But I find that I can't, because these cretins were elected by actual citizens of the country in which I live. It's fucking sobering. At least some percentage of these mouthbreathing slackjawed fuckwits know better than the garbage that they are selling, but are pushing it to appeal to yet more uninformed people because they are completely cynical about the outcomes. They are, and will be, feeling no pain. 

I'm going to try, of course. But I have a hard time divorcing my opinion from my passions on this one. In 2008, the economy took a massive dump and regular Americans all over lost equity in their homes, had their retirement savings hollowed out, lost jobs, lost businesses, because of a credit crisis. And all the while, economics brains talked about "confidence" and "uncertainty in the markets". And here are people who ran on being business-friendly threatening to toss more uncertainty out there, fucking with confidence in the credit-worthiness of the US government with an outcome that would raise everyone's borrowing rates? In the lifetime of my blog, I've tried to talk about the 99% and the recession and inequality and why Democratic economic policies were better all-around. This stuff doesn't even make sense as a conservative approach to the economy. It is certainly not a debt nor a deficit reducing tool to add to the interest we pay on the debt. And even if the government is shut down, we are still "spending" even without trying. Where are the fiscal conservatives whose sensibilities this offends?

I don't give up, but forgive me if some days I just can't even with these people, you know?

2 comments:

Yastreblyansky said...

The problem, isn't it, is that it makes you feel conservative: quivering with indignation like Richard Nixon, or my dear grandmother. We don't have to write about it at all, anyhow. Somebody's got it covered. Colbert even makes it funny. Any time I am tempted to type the phrase "full faith and credit" I am going to try to move on to some other subject.

The Captcha word I'm looking at seems to have some relevant symbolic meaning, but I don't want to try to figure it out: "autweet".

Vixen Strangely said...

The problem, isn't it, is that it makes you feel conservative: quivering with indignation like Richard Nixon, or my dear grandmother.

So true! I want to hike up my khakis and tell these bozos "Straighten up and fly right, you deadbeats!" or "Representative government--love it or leave it!" or "If you can't hack congress you big babies, find a real job." These guys are violating this nation's time-honored traditions, and I want to deliver the kind of talking to that usually ends with "Now tuck in your shirt and get a proper haircut, you slacker!"

It's, like, not my usual bag, man.

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