I am not a Democrat. Haven’t been since 1980. If I had a political affiliation, it would be Despising the GOP, which has become the American Fascist Party. As such, I have, for practical purposes, come to rely on Democratic victories to save the republic from Nazis, demagogues and the Christian Taliban.
Which is why for years I’ve been utterly infuriated by the Democrats’ inability to communicate the stakes (and the truth), while the opposing Party of Lies endlessly dwells in thirst traps of reactionary unreality.
Why the Dems refuse to message systematically until the cusp of Election Day is an ongoing mystery, though they have often claimed the voters care only about pocketbook issues — and now, finally, abortion rights — versus the jagged noise of the 24-hour campaign. There may be truth in that, but the upshot is ceding the Great Political Message Board to the GOP, which beams a steady flow of disinformation into a near-total vacuum of dis-disinformation.
That’s insane. First of all, policy and legislation do not wait for the three months before the polls open every two years. Secondly, while the Democrats sit on their hands, repugnant lies take hold. As we see in the debt-ceiling clusterfuck, once again the GOP is holding hostage the full faith and credit of the United States while blaming the administration for the crisis, when objectively the opposite is true.
And so, for what little it matters, I’m stepping in. This will be the first of eight columns examining crucial issues long since clouded by laughably dishonest Republican propaganda in the service of authoritarianism, racism, toxic antisemitism, anti-secularism, nationalism and pandering-to-the-stupidism. My mission: to distill GOP depravity to its essence, one spurious lie at a time.
Neighbor D and Neighbor R have had a long dispute. Neighbor D is frustrated by Neighbor R’s front-yard koi pond, which D claims is a hazard to neighborhood children. They battle in court for years. One day, Neighbor D’s small child strays into R’s yard and is soon floating face down in the pond. Panicked Neighbor D rushes to save his son, but is stopped at the property line by Neighbor R, who is brandishing an AR-15.
R: Stop or I’ll shoot.
D: My son is drowning.
R: Agree to drop your lawsuit and I’ll let you by.
That, at its essence, is the debt-ceiling showdown. In order to extract — actually, extort — onerous budgetary concessions from the Biden Administration, Congressional Republicans are threatening not to authorize the routine expansion of the statutory U.S. debt limit before the deadline. Credit default, as nobody disputes, would be catastrophic for the financial trustworthiness of the nation and would trigger devastating financial fallout here and worldwide. The scale and scope of the disaster are vast beyond anyone’s capacity to predict. Yet, for the sake of a political victory on a “conservative” principle that is dubious at best, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy refuses to pass the historically routine legislation increasing the debt limit.
Agree to our spending demands and we’ll let you by.
So, first of all, fuck him. That is sick beyond measure. Secondly, it is all based on lies.
The Republicans claim that raising the debt limit is a cowardly and irresponsible act that will forever put fiscal health out of reach. “Unsustainable,” is suddenly McCarthy’s word. In fact, since 1917, the debt limit has been designed to be increased periodically according to an expanding economy, inflation and the inevitable increase in government obligations in a growing society. Which is why Congress, whether led by Republicans or Democrats, has increased or suspended the limit 78 times since 1960.
Republicans also claim that the expanded national debt is the result of tax-and-spend Democratic profligacy. They seem to have forgotten the $5 trillion cost of the pandemic stimulus spending, which sustained families and small businesses, kept the U.S. economy afloat and prevented major recession and untold numbers of bankruptcies. The principled conservatives have even greater amnesia about the $1.5 trillion 2017 Trump tax cut, which the GOP said would stimulate $1.8 trillion in new revenue and assure economic growth through the alchemy of supply-side economics. Nope. Though it is impossible to fully assess the impact, the tax cut is presumed by economists to have increased the deficit by $1.4 trillion to date.
Surprise, surprise. The GOP’s budget proposals trade in the same old vilification of the vulnerable and poor (work requirements for Medicaid, for example), attack Green Energy development, double down on fossil-fuels exploration, reduce regulation and further the whole litany of GOP priorities themselves built on lies. (“Job killing” regulation? There is no evidence that safeguarding the public and the markets has ever, in 100 years, depressed employment or economic growth.)
If you are surprised that elected officials could be so dishonest and reckless, don’t be. We’ve seen this movie before.
In 1995 and 1996, the government shut down twice when Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich refused to budge after President Bill Clinton vetoed spending bills that would have gutted programs on energy, environment and public health (including, whaddya know, Medicaid). Gingrich threatened to block the annual debt-ceiling increase, but was so politically damaged by the shutdowns that he was forced to relent.
In 2013, led by Sen. Ted Cruz (Lying Shithead – TX) and Speaker of the House John Boehner (Permatan – OH), Republicans refused to fund the government without spending cuts, including a delay in implementing President Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act. With no continuing resolutions passed, the government was forced into shutdown for 16 days as Boehner played chicken with the fast-approaching debt-ceiling deadline. Despite modest Democratic concessions on ACA eligibility, Boehner held out until only a few hours before U.S. debt default. Then, finally, he blinked.
In January 2018, Democrats in Congress took a page from the Republican playbook and refused to pass a spending package that did not protect DACA and the Dream Act for undocumented immigrants who had been well absorbed into American society. The impasse, and shutdown, ended in three days. Then in December, Congressional Democrats refused to fund President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful wall” at the Southern Border, and the ensuing shutdown lasted 35 days. In neither case, was the United States near to or in danger of credit default.
Like much GOP demagoguery and bedrock conservative fantasy, the claims of unsustainability are an appeal to supposed common sense. You shouldn’t spend more than you have, and neither should the government. Except that a government is not a household. The principles of personal finance do not apply to gigantic, growing economies in a vast, interconnected global economy that itself is invested in the expansion of our GDP and puts its money where its mouth is. U.S. debt — not the gold at Fort Knox — is the currency of the world.
And, by the way, who says people shouldn’t spend more than they earn? Ever heard of a mortgage?
It’s GOP lie upon GOP lie. And if you think my opening analogy is inflammatory, don’t look at me. U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said McCarthy shouldn’t even talk to the White House on debt default, because his colleagues “don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage.”
He worries that McCarthy will blink. I worry that the poor little boy will die in the pond.