Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Paul Krugman blogs at the New York Times, To The Brink, Again:
If John Boehner
is to be believed — which, admittedly, is a real question — Republicans
are once again willing to push America into default and/or shut down
the government if they don’t get their way. As Greg Sargent
points out, this is amazing — and what’s equally amazing is how this is
being treated as normal. Politics ain’t beanbag; but “I’ve got a bomb
strapped to my chest, and the whole room gets it if you don’t hand over
the money” is not normal tactics, especially if pursued repeatedly.
* * *
To the extent that there ever was an economic justification for this
brinksmanship — the claim that we were on the verge of a debt crisis,
the claim that slashing spending would boost the economy — that
justification has collapsed in the face of declining debt projections
and overwhelming evidence that austerity has large negative impacts in a
slump.
Still, how can the GOP be acting this crazy again? This time around, it’s hard to see Obama caving in. So why the brinksmanship?
Well, my guess is that despite being drenched in reality-repellent,
Republicans are beginning to suspect an inconvenient truth: Obamacare is
not going to be a self-destroying train wreck. Instead, it’s going to work
— not perfectly, not as well as it should, but well enough to help far
more people than it hurts. And if that’s how it turns out, it will be
irreversible. So here comes a last-ditch effort to stop it, at all
costs.
But think about that for a moment: the cause for which the GOP is
willing to go to the brink, breaking all political norms, threatening
the US and world economies with incalculable damage, is the cause of preventing people with preexisting conditions and/or low incomes from getting health insurance. Apparently, the prospect that their fellow citizens might receive this help is so horrifying that nothing else matters.
It's a civil war: Tea-Publicans v. Americans.
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You are delusional. The ratio of money to the economy continues to climb. You would have us believe this can continue into perpetuity. At some point there is going to be a stampede and overnite, money is going to be devalued by half the same way homes were devalued overnite when people stampeded out of housing. The laws of economics can be forestalled but not repealed. The answer is not austerity but growth – lower tax rates, reduced regulation, getting people off welfare into work.