Wednesday, April 27, 2011

When Worlds Collide

The Republicans' furious activities of the past two years, accelerating since their November victories, have brought together the more extreme elements of the Big Money GOPers with the most extreme and ideological Tea Party Rabid Righters.  The Big Money GOPers carefully nurtured and fed the fire-breathing tpartiers, and got them elected.  The tea wild partiers repay that patronage, especially on the state level, with the kind of extreme privatization, more money to those with the most money already while busting the system so that Democrats are at deeper disadvantage in future elections. All of this serves the Big Money GOPers' long-term interests, as well as their always short-term bank accounts.

In Washington so far it's been more noise than substance, but this smoke and mirrors deficit hawking, and extreme stuff like the Ryan budget, moves the whole playing field to the right, so that works for the Big Money GOPers.  Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of their new fire-breathers actually believe this Rabid Right revolution stuff.

These two very different groups, the globeshattering billionaires and the local yokels, have managed a match made in hell pretty well so far.  But now these worlds seem to be on a collision course, and if these worlds collide in the next few weeks on one crucial issue, the economic future could suddenly be catastrophic.

Right now Wall Street is already getting a bit nervous about the congressional GOPers posturing on refusing to raise the U.S. debt ceiling.  According to reports, the billionaires and their multimillionaire minions are working these folks behind the scenes to basically convince them not to do this, to raise the ceiling as usual and as quickly as possible, and a few GOPer political consultants are saying it out loud.

Moreover they are warning that the tea wild partiers in the House can't even do the brinksmanship thing like they did on the budget.  The debt ceiling has to be raised by early July, but some are saying that Congress has to do it by early June or the international shit is going to hit the fan, big, big, big time.  That's apparently not good for Big Money GOPers and their really big...money.

The debt ceiling merely allows the U.S. to pay its past debts, like the billions Bush spent on invading and occupying Iraq, giving out millions in tax breaks to billionaires, and giving billions in federal money to health insurance companies for senior prescription coverage without adding revenue to offset it.   Without raising the debt ceiling, the U.S. becomes the biggest deadbeat in history and the global financial dominoes could come tumbling down.  Some warn that it's not like shutting down the government for a day or two to make a point either--once the world loses faith in America as a credit-worthy stable safe haven that no political nonsense can shake, it's pretty much over.  The tea wild partiers can do in a few weeks what no enemy could do in war, and what no terrorists could dream of accomplishing.

So can Obama and the Dems make a deal with Banal and the GOPers, and will the tea wild partiers let that happen?  The key question may be: can the Big Money GOPers control the tea wild partiers they got elected?  If they can't, it may be time to shop for another planet.  They may be able to afford one, but I don't think there's one ready to move into.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the planet will still be here. As will the vast majority of those who live on it. They are poor. Should the USA default they will remain poor.if the USA extends the debt limit they will be poor. The difference is many of the not so poor will become poor. However the planet will remain as habitable as before. It will just have more poor people on it. The rich will manage.
the struggle will continue.
Lemmuel

PS keep an eye on the the great north things are getting interesting up here.