A few weeks ago, pundits were predicting dire consequences if the government shut down. As near as I can tell, except for the National Park Service acting more thuggish than usual, nothing really happened. People are still getting their social security checks. American soldiers are still getting killed in Afghanistan. Some government web sites have annoyingly shut down, as if it costs more to run a web site that provides information than it does to operate a site that only says it will refuse to provide that information.
national debt
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This debt clock seems to be off, as the current debt ceiling is just under $16.7 trillion. But it shows how fast Congress is spending money.
Now the predictions about what will happen if Congress refuses to increase the debt ceiling are even more dire. I don’t really buy that either. Investors know that this is just a political spat; if they believe that the United States can support more than $16.7 trillion worth of debt, they’ll believe it just as much a few weeks from now as today.
I can’t say I really support Congress and the administration playing chicken with the United States economy. This tactic didn’t work well for Republicans the last time they tried it, and it probably won’t work well for them now.
At the same time, I don’t appreciate what the administration is doing to the economy either: imposing costly new rules; frequently changing those rules; overruling investor rights; advocating higher minimum wages. Just as the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression, all of these things will keep the economy in the doldrums indefinitely.
The real question is how fiscal conservatives can overcome these problems. I suspect it will only be done at the ballot box, not in Congress, which means they have to look at how members of the public is viewing their behavior. Acting too extreme today is likely to reduce their support in the next election.
A new NBC poll finds that most Americans are neither “liberal” (meaning both fiscally and socially liberal) or “conservative” (meaning both fiscally and socially conservative), but in fact are “centrists” (meaning mixed). Out of the centrists, a majority are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Of course, this isn’t news to libertarians.
What this really means, though, is that Democrats will usually win if they can persuade those “centrists” that social issues are more important than fiscal ones; while Republicans will usually win if they can persuade them that fiscal issues are the more important. The fight over the budget is certainly fiscal, but if Democrats can persuade people that it will have negative social consequences, then the fiscal conservatives will lose. To prevent that from happening, it might be time for the Republicans to blink. Then they can go back to predicting dire consequences from trying to implement Obamacare and the administration’s other programs rather than facing the consequences of their own intransigence.
I would be cautious assuming that the Republicans want lower spending and a balanced budget. Under Ronald Reagan the Republicans were happy to deficit spend. Then in 2001 when a Republican president, and congress inherited a balanced budget they immediately threw away their contract with America to approve a balanced budget amendment. They then cut taxes, approved all spending, and even re-elected a vice president who was publicly saying that deficits didn’t matter even as the US debt grew. Any realistic attempt to solve the budget deficit will have to include spending cuts, changes to lower entitlement costs, and higher taxes. It is likely that the Republicans in power would lower taxes and start saying that “deficits don’t matter” again.
Unfortunately you are right, Paul, which surely damages current stances in the eyes of any public with honest (two-sided) recall.
Republicans are not necessarily conservatives.
Unfortunately, conservatives have no present choice but to be Republicans. The Democrats are effectively a band of communists and the Libertarians are too small, too fractured, leaving conservatives little choice but to hold their noses and vote Republican.
Those who would voluntarily run for office are by nature both leftish and authoritarian.
So conservatives will never come out in droves to support politicians whom they know to be lying lefty crapweasels whose only merit is that they are sometimes less awful than a Democrat politician.
There are still American soldiers being killed in Afghanistan? I haven’t heard a news story about that since January 20, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/world/asia/american-soldier-is-killed-by-attacker-in-afghan-uniform.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/us/us-military-deaths-in-afghanistan.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/06/afghanistan-us-soldiers-killed_n_4053274.html
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, American and Afghan officials said. They were the latest casualties in a 12-year conflict that shows no signs of slowing down despite a drawdown in foreign forces.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/21/world/afghanistan-us-soldiers-killed/
I remember the day when the “body count” was loathed by liberals, then it was the lead story every day on NPR and PBS during the Iraq war, with extended stories on every 10, 100 and 1000 multiple. They even ran stories with there was no dead just to reinforce the narrative.
Then, after January 20, 2009, the body count stories just disappeared.
And no stories on how the war dead no longer got even death benefits in the last few weeks.
Speaking of Republicans aren’t conservative, Mitch McConnell got a nice $3 billion earmark as part of the agreement to reopen the government. Defund Obamacare! Fund Kentucky!
Also there was a story about Afghanistan on PBS New Hour last night. Me thinks Sandy has a bad case of the ideologue groupthinkareha.
You will also remember how every single night leading up to the election in Nov 2008, CNN would show a video of coffins draped with flags arriving home. They argued that the citizens had the right to see this so that everyone would know soldiers were dying.
As soon as the administration changed, they stopped showing this and have never done it again. No explanation–no apologies.
They have no conscience.
The key to success in filtering the news is to do what I do… Don’t have cable. I have no idea what CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc. are doing other than sensationalizing some bullshit to keep their viewers is a fearful state of readiness. I prefer to read my news. The news I read talks about the “conflicts” we’re involved in daily, and this includes “liberal” publications like the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal (liberal sans the editorial page).
Sandy:
There are far better ways of making that point that being trite about the deaths of heroes like my friend Lt. Col. Christopher Raible, USMC, who died on point leading the American defense against a terrorist sneak attack inside Camp Bastion about 13 months ago.
“The difference between me and some people is that when they hear gunfire, they run. When I hear gunfire, I run to it”
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-09-22/world/35495453_1_camp-bastion-helmand-fighter-jets