Maybe you don't realize how serious this is
rondam.blogspot.com
rondam.blogspot.com
My intuition is that what's happening right now is just theatrics and sabre-rattling: A solution will be reached before the deadline, and then both sides will proudly declare victory.
As long as the media does its job of focusing the uneducated on taxes and not on debt spending, this shit is going to keep happening:
All the information coming from DC right now is political kabuki, posturing, and high-stakes negotiating drama. If you find that sort of thing entertaining, sure, follow along.
Otherwise, ignore it until it blows up and/or there's an election. For now, certain people have been elected to deal with this, and they almost certainly will. If they don't, and there's another fiscal crisis, they'll lose their jobs next go-round, which is how it works.
In the meantime calling congresspeople with a general admonition to "do something" or "get it together, this is SERIOUS BUSINESS" or "go along with the President" or "go along with the House" is meaningless, especially compared to the rapid market/economic feedback that will arrive in the absence of a resolution.
How do you know which side deserves blame for the blow up if you don't pay attention to who did what in the lead up to the crisis?
Or is the logic here as simple as "if blowup, vote for non-incumbent"?
I suspect the logic amongst the Tea Party crowd may well be that, given enough disinformation, people will follow that logic. Certainly the driving logic behind Fox News is that, if you can claim that everyone else has a bias and nobody tells the truth, then one man's truth is as good as another's. The Tea Partiers can claim that this is Obama's fault and do what Boehner did after Obama's speech: obfuscate and obscure with half-truths and red herrings.
I suspect that a good chunk of the Tea Party crowd would be willing to accept the economic disaster that could result from this brinkmanship, if it meant they could rebuild according to their goals and beliefs. The Tea Partiers are activists in every sense of the word. Primarily, that means that they believe the current system is hopelessly broken, and that it needs to be fundamentally dismantled and rebuilt. As in any revolution, a period of chaos is to be expected, and even celebrated, as it represents the death throes of the old order.
The Republican mainstream won't let that happen. They'll agree to the closure of modest tax holes in exchange for deeper cuts, and the debt ceiling will be raised. As much as they complain about government spending, the Republican mainstream are Old Order politicians, just like their Democrat counterparts. Boehner just needs to ride a fine enough line to appease the Tea Partiers and so carry their support into 2012, which is the only reason I can think of that he's acting the way he is.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/us/politics/27date.html
Otherwise, ignore it until it blows up and/or there's an election. For now, certain people have been elected to deal with this, and they almost certainly will. If they don't, and there's another fiscal crisis, they'll lose their jobs next go-round, which is how it works.
Right. Let's ignore the political process until it blows up in our face. Sure, our economy will tank. But at least I get the satisfaction of voting for someone else come November!
Honestly, while the tea party is strong, my feeling is that the majority of the Republican party are somewhat reasonable conservatives who actually like having an economy. They'll use the softness in the stock market to reinforce why they need additional tax cuts or other concessions and ride to the rescue when they 'miraculously' come to a compromise days before the limit.
Such is the state of politics today.
This seems to conflict with this article [1]:
> But several new reports — from UBS, Barclays and Wells Fargo — have cast doubt on that estimate. Analysts have said that daily tax receipts have been higher than anticipated and that the Treasury has quite a bit of cash on hand.
It only adds a few extra days, to be sure, but the deadline is not as hard as the OP makes it out to be.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-could-avoi...
This is true: "if Congress does not get its act together, there are going to be a whole lot of folks who will wake up and find themselves with no job, no cash, and very shortly thereafter, no home and no prospects". But it fails to mention that those people are exclusively government employees. When I see unemployed IRS agents begging for change on street corners, I'll know that we've finally turned back the tide.
What if we made a website where we voted on a "default default", that is - if we collectively voted on a proposal that should go into effect if they haven't arrived at a compromise that they like better?
We talk about default as though it's something the US can easily avoid, but we can only easily avoid that if we get our shit together NOW. And that's simply not going to happen if we continue to toss the hot potato to the next generation at every opportunity. We don't just need to get the deficit under control a little, we need to get to a surplus, so we can pay down the debt. And the only way we can get there is to cut spending by a lot and probably also to raise taxes.
In short, fundamentally this isn't a new problem, and it's seriousness isn't new either, it's visibility is the newness.