Let's propose a new rule:
Booman is always wrong.
Okay, that's not fair. His heart is in the right place. He's no dummy. But...oh, jeez, just
look at
this (written in response to
this)...
But the Republicans will never intentionally default on our debts, and it was never much more than the remotest possibility that they would do so by accident. That was a hostage that wasn't a hostage. The GOP leadership has already ceded this point. As to the government shutdown, it's very unfortunate, but really no more unfortunate the sequester which has been grinding people down all year long and has been hurting the economy.
It's very important to understand that the GOP is not going to default on our debts. They do not, in fact, have a gallon of gasoline and a match that they will light if we don't give in to their tantrum. We don't have to worry about that.
No, froggie. You're wrong. The Republicans really
are that nuts.
Not all of them are nuts, obviously. But the teabaggers are pretty damned crazy, and they have rigged the rules of their game so that the non-insane don't get to stick around. Consider teabagger congresscritter
Ted Yoho of Florida:
“You’re seeing the tremor before the tsunami here,” Yoho said. “I’m not going to raise the debt ceiling.”
“I see one side of our government, or two-thirds of it, running 100 miles an hour toward socialism,” Yoho said, meaning Obama and the Democratic-led Senate. He knows people agree with him on that, he said, because he asks people about it at town-hall meetings: “ ‘How many people feel we’re heading into socialism?’ Hands go up.”
“I think we need to have that moment where we realize [we’re] going broke,” Yoho said. If the debt ceiling isn’t raised, that will sure as heck be a moment. “I think, personally, it would bring stability to the world markets,” since they would be assured that the United States had moved decisively to curb its debt.
Yes. He actually said that.
Not raising the debt ceiling would bring stability to the world markets. He said it, he thinks it, he means it.
Also see
here.
These are people who have convinced themselves that global warming is a conspiracy of scientists. These are people who think that the 2008 financial meltdown was caused by
too much regulation.
Never underestimate the nuttiness of the nuts.