The Politics of GOP Tyranny – On the Brink of Economic Armageddon

Most people are probably confused about all this debt ceiling stuff. Understandable, but people need to know what it all means.

Let’s clarify one thing. If the debt ceiling is not raised it will seriously impact you, me, your family members, the cashier at your supermarket, your neighbors, your kids teachers, co-workers if you’re lucky to have a job, the food server at your favorite restaurant, the obnoxious telemarketer you constantly hang up on, everyone. Even the billionaires and corporate Wall Street hacks will be impacted, but of course they’ll find some way to get tax breaks and bailouts to offset any loses.

Among other things interest rates would soar, meaning credit card charges would rise sharply for any unpaid balances, mortgage rates would jump sharply, depressing housing prices even more, the U.S. dollar’s value would drop which would hike the price of gasoline and other imported goods, imported goods being most of what we use, and our savings would lose their value.

Plus, Social Security, SSI, Veteran benefits checks may not be mailed out, and Medicare and Medicaid payments may not be paid.

We are facing a situation where people, in the form of GOP and Tea Party representatives, individuals who should not be trusted to be school crossing guards in a Mid-West town with a population of 13, much less Members of Congress, are in control of determining the future well-being of the United States of America.

If the debt ceiling is not increased by next week the US will default for the first time in the history of our country and we will not be able to pay our bills. The US will owe about $307 billion during the rest of August, but is expecting to take in about $172 billion in revenues, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. Thus, 70 million checks the federal government routinely mails out every month will not go out.

The outrage here is that this is a totally manufactured, self-inflicted crisis created by these GOP/Tea Party lunatics.

This crisis should not be happening. The raising of the debt limit has always been a routine, matter of fact process. President Reagan did it 18 times. George W. Bush did it seven times. Both House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Kantor voted to raise the debt limit in the past without a murmur.

Also, why is raising the debt ceiling being linked to developing a grandiose budget deficit cutting plan? And, why has President Obama been suckered into this approach? The debt ceiling is about past budget decisions and bills the government owes now based on those past decisions. The budget and deficit cutting issues are about future spending. They have never been linked and should not be linked now. Congress should just vote on a clean bill to simply raise the debt limit and have the budget debates later.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter at US Conf of Mayors news conference

The real issue Congress should be debating is how more jobs are going to be created. The big concern is that if either the Democratic or Republican budget cut plans is adopted, the ability for government to create needed jobs will diminish because government hands will be tied. Instead of less spending, we need more spending to stimulate the economy and, thus, create more jobs. At the recent US Conference of Mayors news conference that Coalition for Economic Survival members participated in, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said it best. Mayor Nutter stated that people who come up to him don’t ever say, “Mayor you have to do something about this deficit. They say what are you going to do about creating more jobs.”

In reality, the damage that the GOP and Tea Party crazies are about to inflict on the U.S., the amount of people they will hurt, the number of lives that will be destroyed by their actions, will far exceed anything that Al Qaeda or the Taliban could ever do to us.

These GOP/Tea Party people are nothing but economic terrorists. And, while the Tea Party likes to see themselves as patriots in the tradition of the American Revolution, in reality they are really traitors out to destroy this nation.

The people of Wisconsin should serve as a model for an eventual response to this madness. After their Tea Party Governor Scott Walker and his Republican controlled state legislature declared war on working people’s rights and labor unions in their state by stripping away the right of collective bargaining, there was massive demonstrations and a take-over of the state capitol.

These actions laid the ground-work for a political response. Recall elections were triggered against six Republicans State Senators eligible for recall. The election results this summer will determine who controls the Wisconsin state Senate heading into 2012. With recent polls indicating victory, a majority status would allow Democrats to stymie Walker’s agenda going forward and reverse the laws attacking workers’ rights.

Just like in Wisconsin, the GOP/Tea Party majority control of the House of Representatives must be wrestled back by the Democrats. Hopefully, if this should happen, having experienced the last year of a House controlled by the GOP and Tea Party, the Democrats will be more aggressive in pushing a more progressive agenda and not squander the full potential that could achieved as they did recently. If this should not happen, then the continued politics of GOP tyranny will mean more hardship and despair for poor, middle class and working people of this country. It is up to us to make sure this is not the case.