If the debt ceiling is not raised by August 2nd, we have been furiously warned to expect financial Armageddon. Collapse. Doom and gloom. Soaring interest rates. Default. Credit rating downgrades. No Social Security checks. No military pay. Government worker layoffs. We’ll be living in catacombs. Wide-spread famine will result.
Alright, I made those last two up.
But it reflects the level of hysteria brought on by politicians and talking heads who fight for air time to hyperventilate about their ‘doomsday’ scenarios.
Yet, for all of the breathless conjecture, the truth is:
NO ONE KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN.
The longer this goes on, the more I listen to these chicken littles, the more this sounds like the financial version of “Y2K.”
How embarrassing.
Harry Reid has thrown around his own version of a spending cuts/revenue-addressing/deficit reduction plan, as if this issue has been a priority for him all along.
And through it all, Obama and the Democrats have done everything in their power to paint Republican House members as irresponsible, beholden to the “fringe” Tea Party, using phrases like “holding America hostage” to demonize their actions.
However, there is one aspect of this entire situation, no matter which side you fall on regarding the measures being discussed, that cannot be obscured by the issue or the political drama associated with it:
Without the Republicans having won their majority in the House of Representatives, without the “new blood” who campaigned on fiscal responsibility, NONE of these issues would have seen the light of day.
No discussion of spending cuts. No discussion of the ill effects of continually raising the debt ceiling. No talk of a balanced budget amendment.
If it were up to the politically entrenched crooks like Harry Reid, Obama, and Pelosi, the issue of the debt ceiling would not even be in question. Our massive spending addiction and the fiscal abortion into which Washington has buried this country would continue to be ignored. The political slush-fund they call a budget would again be hoisted onto the backs of Americans, no matter how fraught with pork and inefficiency it may contain.
Yet for all the attempts by Democrats and Obama to frighten us, for the transparently political demonization of the House Republicans, nothing will change the one over-riding truth:
It was the determination, focus, and political will of the Republicans in the House of Representatives which has served as the catalyst for this change. And it was ordinary American voters who chose to elect them to do exactly what it is they are now doing.
No matter if (and this will not happen) the Reid bill passed, or no matter if there are some specifics in the final bill which are based on face-saving “compromise,” the fact that this significant battle has been fought is a testament to the fortitude of those Republicans and the foresight of the voters who put them there.
Republicans ran on fiscal responsibility. And they are holding to their word.
How refreshing.
