The business community tells Tea-Publicans ‘Enough! Raise the federal debt ceiling’

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The business community has been warning the leadership of the Tea-Publican Congress for months now not to screw around when it comes to raising the federal debt ceiling.

Most of these conversations have been in private out of public view, until now.

The reason that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner began searching for a way to walk back from the brink of default on Tuesday is because the corporate masters of the Republican Party publicly announced "Enough!" They have been given their marching orders to "raise the federal debt ceiling." Political Animal – Business community to Congress: Enough:

It wasn’t too long ago that 62 leading U.S. business groups, including the American Gas Association, the Telecommunications Industry Association, and the National Association of Manufacturers, all pleaded with Congress to end the standoff and raise the debt ceiling. “With economic growth slowly picking up we cannot afford to jeopardize that growth with the massive spike in borrowing costs that would result if we defaulted on our obligations,” the groups said. “It is critically important that the United States stands fully behind its legal obligations.”

That was two months ago today. Ordinarily, the allegedly “pro-business” Republican Party would have taken this seriously, but instead, GOP leaders ignored the pleas.

So, business leaders are being forced to ask a little louder.

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President Obama explained that he’s spoken “extensively” to the business community, but they’re often reluctant to push Congress publicly, even if they agree with Obama privately: “[T]hey’ve got a whole bunch of business pending before Congress and they don’t want to make anybody mad.”

Fortunately, some are raising their voices anyway.

A sprawling coalition of Wall Street and Main Street business leaders sent an unmistakable message to lawmakers Tuesday: Enough squabbling. Get the debt ceiling raised.

The message, sent in a letter to President Obama and every member of Congress, puts pressure on GOP lawmakers, who have staked out an uncompromising stance against raising taxes in the partisan wrangling over the country’s borrowing limit.

Republicans rely heavily on corporations for political support and have regularly cited the opinions of these “job creators” in their opposition to new tax revenue. Many of the House GOP freshmen most opposed to a compromise were swept into office with the help of financial support from groups behind the letter.

But the business community, which has largely kept quiet on the issue until now, does not uniformly share the Republican orthodoxy on taxes, according to some lobbyists who helped craft the statement. 

The businesses involved in this effort didn’t present a blueprint for a possible debt-reduction plan, and were silent on revenues or cuts-to-savings ratio. The reason is simple: they don’t much care. The corporate leaders just want Congress to raise the debt ceiling; how members get to “yes” is irrelevant.

In this case, the letter was “signed by hundreds of senior company executives and groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.”

So, let’s see. Wall Street wants Republicans to stop screwing around. The business community wants Republicans to stop screwing around. Global investors want Republicans to stop screwing around. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department want Republicans to stop screwing around.

But the Republican Party has been hijacked by its far-right radical Tea Party extremists who campaigned on the rhetoric of "shut down the government." According to House Speaker Boehner, at least a quarter of the House GOP caucus actually wants to see the United States default; the total is probably higher than 60. Bruce Bartlett took a look at the Balanced Budget Amendment Plus that all 47 Senate Republicans signed their names to and are demanding a vote on, and he pronounced it “quite possibly the stupidest constitutional amendment I think I have ever seen. It looks like it was drafted by a couple of interns on the back of a napkin.” The lunatics are running the asylum.

As Steve Benen observes in a later post, Political Animal – What it means to be ‘pro-business’:

News flash, business community: you invested in the wrong horses.

Jon Chait noted today that if Republicans block a debt-ceiling increase before August 2, “The business elite will decide that the Republicans are dangerous and must be stopped.”

I think that’s true. I also think the business elite should have thought of this last year.

If the business community is not going to give campaign contributions to Democrats, it can at least support moderate Republicans in primary races and make it clear that it will not support any far-right Tea Party extremist candidates.

And if these Tea-Publicans actually cause the U.S. to default on its debt for the first time in its history and spark another deep recession, the American people should turn on the conservative movement in this country with a vengeance at the polls.