Default Avoided, But Who Won?
The crisis created by the Republican Party and the Tea Party over the issue of raising the debt ceiling is over. It is evident that the Tea Party feels like they really showed their strength and came out the big winners in this debacle. Unfortunately, they made the rest of the American people the losers. Remember what John Boehner and Mitch McConnell said when the 2011 session of Congress began? Their main goal was to make sure that President Obama wasn’t re-elected. The Republicans and the Tea Party have proven that it doesn’t matter if the economy remains stagnate and millions of American people continue to be unemployed, because if the economy remains bad, there is a chance President Obama won’t be re-elected!
So they tied the issue of raising the debt ceiling to deficit reduction. The debt ceiling has been raised multiple times (74 times since 1962) without any questions. But they used scare tactics and lies to convince Americans it was the right thing to do. Sarah Palin, in a recent interview said, the Tea Party members were brave to stand their ground and not vote for the compromise debt ceiling package. They shouldn’t vote to allow even more spending by raising the debt ceiling. Does Mrs. Palin just not understand what raising the debt ceiling means or was she just lying for Fox News? When you raise the debt ceiling you are saying you will pay the bills you have already incurred not giving the OK to incur new debt! If we didn’t raise the debt ceiling we would have almost certainly lost our AAA credit rating (still in doubt), interest rates would have sky rocketed, and the stock market would have lost even more than it already has. Maybe the Tea Party feels you shouldn’t have to pay your bills. Take for example our 9th district Representative, Tom Graves. He took out a loan for $2.25 million and now says he shouldn’t have to pay it. His Attorney, Simon Bloom contends “Bartow County Bank never should have issued Graves and his business partner a loan, citing statements in a deposition in which a bank official admitted knowing the partners did not have the money to guarantee the loan.”(Gainesville Times, July 22, 2011). Maybe that reasoning is why Graves didn’t care if our government went into default and therefore voted no on the “debt deal.”
Last week I visited Tom Graves’ office and spoke to a field representative about issues that concern me and many of my friends. The main issue I wanted to address was the Republican Party and the Tea party’s refusal to raise revenue. Most economists believe that the only way to really cut the deficit is to include new revenue along with cuts. What I heard from his representative was what we hear on the news all the time. No new tax revenues, cut programs that help families and those in need, and even if you do work hard for your $50,000 a year, you are not as worthy as the millionaire or billionaire. Rep. Graves will be back in town conducting town hall meetings next week. You may want to question him about this attitude about working people.
So what did the Tea Party accomplish? They tied up the government for more than a month over an issue that should have taken 30 seconds to decide. Instead of working on finding ways to create jobs, our Congress and President battled over the debt ceiling and tied it to deficit reduction. The “deal” that finally passed calls for budget cuts of about $900 billion. These cuts could possibly cause as many as 1.2 million jobs to be lost! It also calls for a “super committee” of congressional leaders to begin meeting to come up with another $1.5 Trillion in budget cuts by November, 23, 2011. So at a time when we should be focusing on jobs, we instead are implementing programs that will mean the loss of even more jobs! And Republicans have vowed not to place anyone on the committee that would ever consider raising revenue! Sounds like a stalemate in Congress in the making!
Did the Tea Party Win? I guess because there were no revenue increases in the deal, in their minds they did. They keep complaining about paying such high taxes, when in actuality we pay the lowest percent of our income in taxes now than we ever have. Though they won the no increase in revenue debate, they set the stage for our economy to become even weaker and for even more job losses nationwide! The stock market dropped drastically this week, many say because the damage was already done by the Congress and its inability to solve our problems. Republicans and the Tea Party have been in control of the House of Representatives since January, 2011. There has been nothing done to create jobs. But they did create this false crisis so they would look like winners. Thanks Tea Party and Republicans for caring so much about America!
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