Economic treason

The latest issue of the Washington Spectator (alas, links are through subscription) is, of course, about the debt ceiling battle. The editor, Lou Dubose, breaks it down into two words: dishonesty and cowardice.

The dishonesty is on the GOP side. They are dishonest in the way they say curbing the debt and not raising taxes will improve the economy, that the debt is more important than the lack of jobs, that the debt problem is Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare and not the Bush tax cuts. The GOP has for at least six months been trumpeting these lies.

The cowardice isn't entirely on the Democrat side. John Boehner is terrified of the Tea Party Caucus and Eric Cantor. But the Dems haven't stood up to the GOP and have essentially sold out the middle class by not providing a coherent response. Because there is no Dem argument the GOP argument rules the media.

Dubose thinks the GOP is committing economic treason. And they're doing it to make sure there are no new jobs for another 18 months and Obama gets the blame for economic mismanagement and the GOP gains the White House and perhaps more.

The Washington Spectator now has a blog, also written by Lou Dubose. It doesn't contain the same articles as his paper newsletter, but does have articles similar to what gets mailed out.

Like this tidbit from the end of June. It is a description of the book The Big Sort by Bill Bishop. The main idea is that over the last 30 years Americans have moved to areas so that they are surrounded by people like themselves. San Francisco has a higher percentage of liberals (44% voted GOP in 1976, 14% voted GOP in 2008), as does Austin, Raleigh-Durham, and Portland. People who move there take their education with them. The less educated move to Las Vegas and Cleveland. We are now two distinct countries. There is hardening political positions because we don't interact with people different from us.

And another tidbit posted today. "The Fourteenth Amendment mandates that 'the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or an act of rebellion, shall not be questioned.'" That implies the debt ceiling is not constitutional. So Obama has a choice, hit a negotiation stalemate (like we have now), throw up his hands, and let the economy go off a cliff or simply declare the law void and allow the Treasury to pay its bills while damaging his relations with the GOP. Was he going to get anything else done this term anyway?