As frustrating as it is to be an informed person, it is perhaps much more difficult to be partially informed. Thus, when I stopped reading news late last month to go camping, I missed the beginnings of important developments, which could not be understood without understanding the beginning. Tent cities in Israel began as a protest to a high cost of living compared to income, including protests over housing costs. While I missed the beginning of the story, the protests are not over, although they have been heavily compromised and appear to need new direction. Before we begin at the current point in the story, it is necessary to understand what created the climate for protests, who is involved, and why now.
When the housing market in America collapsed around 2006 to 2008 various tent cities sprang up in American cities. There are “a dozen improvised communities across the country, from Olympia, Washington, to Camden, New Jersey. Our follow-up reporting showed, however, that the camps tend to predate the current foreclosure crisis. There’s nothing new about tent cities in the United States. There’s nothing new about poverty in America. Some folks will be living in improvised shelters in public space whether we’re in a recession or not.” In Seattle, “since 2002 the city has worked with local nonprofits to maintain a rotating 100-person tent city sanctioned by the actual city.”
Israel has many uncoordinated responses to the tent cities. An article by CBC (Canada) says “part of the protest is taking place on Tel Aviv’s expensive Rothschild Boulevard, where a tent city has sprung up among the hip cafés, restaurants and swirling traffic.” There are hundreds of tents just in that area with “tables, chairs, sofas, lights and a kindergarten area,” mostly as a result of students not being able to “find affordable apartments in a deregulated housing market.” A volunteer kitchen coordinator is donating his time, and says ‘people come here in the evening, sit in a circle, talk in a group. People get a spirit, a change of mind, this is the thing that will do the change for the long run.’ Others are donating food, fridges and electric power.
A senior Editor for HaAretz, Bradley Burston, writing in the Huffington Post article titled The Middle Class Anarchists of Israel’s Tent City Revolution describes who the ‘anarchists’ are that the title is referring to. “‘Part of the protest going on at the moment on Rothschild Boulevard is being driven by a gang of anarchists,'” the Likud lawmaker Ofir Akunis, a former spokesman and adviser for Benjamin Netanyahu, said on radio, claiming the protesters came from “‘the adjacent Ahad Ha’am Street, where, as you know, the main branch of the Communist Party is located.'” The “middle-class young adults that seemed the least likely to ever raise a cry” are the “anarchists” the government will have to deal with.
In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald of Australia written the same day as the CBC article the “main complaint is something Sydneysiders know about: the unaffordability of housing and the spiralling cost of living. Property prices [in Israel] have risen about 50 per cent since 2008 as Israel’s burgeoning population – more than 7 million people squeezed into a sliver of land about a third the size of Tasmania – vastly outstrips construction.” To put that in perspective for an American audience, Israel is about the size of New Jersey, and has a population about the same as Washington state. Though unemployment is low and the economy strong, there’s a gaping chasm between rich and poor: one in four people in Israel, and one in three children, live below the poverty line.
This is how it always seems to work in the Middle East. Are the people rising up against you? Are they demanding greater rights, economic equality, social justice? Don’t worry. All you need to do is point the finger at an external enemy — some outside force that threatens your borders, your identity, your very way of life — and hope that the people will forget their troubles and rally around you instead. That’s how it works in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, and Palestine. Why shouldn’t it work that way in Israel, too?”
Luckily, for the Israeli government, although the “most dangerous part of this revolution is that its goal is not to topple the government, but to spur the government to do what it was put there to do” there just happens to be an “external threat” waiting to return the government to business as usual. “Right on cue, a group of as-yet unnamed Palestinian militants launched a series of coordinated attacks in Eilat on Thursday, killing eight and wounding dozens more. Israel immediately retaliated with a series of air strikes on targets in Gaza that have thus far killed at least a dozen Palestinians including a two-year-old boy. In retaliation for the Israeli retaliation, more than a dozen rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel, injuring six Jews near a religious school in Ashdod. And the cycle continues.”
I frequently condemn Israel for use of disproportionate force. I also answered a facebook question, ‘how should Israel respond to the rocket attacks?’ with ‘end the occupation.’ However, although I believe Israel is in the wrong to use force when not necessary – just as I think that of the United States – I think Reza Aslan says it best at the moment: “There is, of course, no justification for unprovoked attacks against civilians — either by Israel or the Palestinians. And certainly Israel has the right to strike back at those who attack its citizens.” Just as importantly, in a different way, what he says in the remainder of that paragraph is just as important. “But there can be no doubt that the attacks and counter-attacks of the last couple of days have given the Netanyahu government the perfect excuse to try to put an end to the J14 protests in the name of national unity.”
Aslan informs us that “already one of the main protest organizers, the National Union of Students, has issued a press release canceling the planned rallies for the weekend so as to show solidarity with the grieving country. While other groups say they still plan to demonstrate on Saturday, they’ve also promised that rally will be not target the government and its policies but will instead be a somber memorial procession meant to honor the victims of Thursday’s attacks.” While this is admirable, and may gain brownie points, it takes away from the cause of the J14 protesters. It would be like the protesters in Wisconsin, in recent months, stopping every time a soldier died in one of our wars. Or, as Aslan says, “this is a perfectly appropriate response on the part of the Israeli public. Solidarity in the face of a tragedy is to be expected. But make no mistake, the Netanyahu government will use the heightened security situation in Israel to pressure the protesters to put aside their demands for social reform and focus instead on the enemy next door.”
70% of Israeli Jewish teenagers think that national security is more important than democratic values (perhaps someone should inform an Israel-supporting US representative of that). Reza Aslan’s reading of the poll says the teenagers “are advocates of militant determinism against Palestinian resistance, and they overwhelmingly support the Likud government’s hard-line position in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. Yet this is also the same generation that has been flooding the streets of cities across the country, demanding the reallocation of funds from the military budget to welfare and healthcare services for the lower classes.”
And yet, Amos Oz, writing for HaAretz, “embraces this new generation, which surpasses the previous ones, with love and wonderment.” One aspect of this rising generation in Israel will prevail. Will it be fairness, equality, and an end to conflict, or will it be the continuation of a security state and avoidance of maintaining a middle class?
I’m not sure how your family ended up in the country you’re in, but chances are that like my family, you immigrated. If you did so recently in the United States, you had the pleasure of working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is about as friendly as its acronym. ICE was “created in 2003 through a merger of the investigative and interior enforcement elements of the U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service,” and describes itself as the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security.
To say ICE is unfriendly is not only a judgment call, it is backed up by repeated evidence. ” Even though the Bonilla family members do not have criminal records, they face removal proceedings before an immigration judge. The family was able to find legal representation and general public support, enabling their release from ICE custody, but undocumented immigrants who are less lucky are routinely sent to prisons and detention centers where ICE will process their paperwork and decide whether they may be released…. What happened to the Bonillas has happened to thousands of immigrant families.” Additionally, and just as importantly, ” the incarceration trend is not limited to public prisons. Thanks to a concerted lobbying push from the corrections industry, growing numbers of undocumented immigrants could end up in private detention facilities.”
Too few of us are familiar with ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council), which is a lobbyist group advocating similar legislation in various states. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but “some of ALEC’s members are both the most ardent proponents of anti-immigration laws and representatives of the industries that will benefit directly from having more people behind bars.” Specifically, “‘98% of ALEC’s funding comes from corporations like Exxon Mobil, corporate “foundations” like the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, or trade associations like the pharmaceutical industry’s PhRMA.'”…
“One of ALEC’s members is Corrections Corporation of America, the country’s largest for-profit prison company, founded in 1983. CCA designs, builds, manages and operates correctional facilities and detention centers on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the United States Marshal Service in nearly half of all states, according to the company’s website.”
That’s not all ALEC does, although that may cover the gist of its immigration policy. ALEC was also behind the anti-union legislation in Wisconsin. Internal ALEC emails to a Wisconsin member “give us a behind-the-scenes look at ALEC’s process, influence and the eventual policy that they produce. These emails were obtained from State Senator Leah Vukmir (while she was still a state representative) through an open records request that was made last year.” That’s only the beginning. “ALEC actively supports repealing the minimum wage, privatizing Social Security and replacing guaranteed health benefits with medical savings accounts. It gives large donations and other perks to legislators, most often reactionary Republicans, in states across the country to carryout corporate initiatives.” It has also been a steadfast proponent of telecommunications deregulations and an opponent to Net neutrality.
The political battle in Wisconsin made the long-secret but very powerful Koch brothers famous. In the same way, ALEC’s practices have long remained hidden, playing a behind-the-scene role effectively using state-legislative stooges to implement the agenda of giant corporations and the super-rich.” Its time to shine a bright light on this organization.
Many events in history are mixed with sadness and joy, by destruction and construction, and with observable and non-observable consequences. Sometimes we celebrate by remembering destruction that is no more, and sometimes we celebrate by remembering construction that is no more. Of all the events in modern history, the results of the Second World War are the most poignant; it is this history that people remember with sadness and joy, and with destruction and construction. Joy is the wrong word, perhaps it is hope. A belief that a better world can be built. So thought the 2.5 million people that fled from East Germany to West Germany after the War. “The Berlin Wall was erected in 1961 on the orders of East Germany’s former leader, Walter Ulbricht, to stop a population exodus,” but not all walls last forever.
Fifty years ago, today, on August 13, 1961, “East Berliners woke to find soldiers had blocked off the streets, cut off rail links and begun building a wall of barbed wire and cemented paving stones, which over the years grew in height and eventually stretched over 155km.” Not all construction is good. Nor is all destruction bad: the Berlin Wall was destined to fall after 28 years. On June 12, 1987 – a little more than two years before the wall came down, President Reagan, in what may be his most resounding foreign policy speech, if not his most resounding action, – spoke what has become an immortal line: General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
Germany is remembering the construction of wall, which began fifty years ago today, with an event that “began overnight on Saturday at a chapel, with a seven-hour-long reading about the lives of those killed while seeking freedom as they fled East Germany for West Germany.edom and democracy around the world….Church bells peeled while trains and traffic came to a standstill at noon across Berlin for a moment of silence for the victims.”
Sometimes, a person under 30 asks Michael Moore, “When did this all begin, America’s downward slide?” They say they’ve heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college, that anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. They’d heard that “people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how “lowly” your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated.”
I’ve often asked the same thing, knowing that there’s an answer. But the answer I’ve always thought, and occasionally heard when I voice my question aloud, is that our “decline” (and it is a decline, though I put that in quotation marks) has been gradual, and our standard of living often falling. I never thought to put a date on it. But Michael Moore has a date: Thirty Years Ago, Today. August 5th, 1981.
On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who’d defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.
It was a bold and brash move. No one had ever tried it. What made it even bolder was that PATCO was one of only three unions that had endorsed Reagan for president! It sent a shock wave through workers across the country. If he would do this to the people who were with him, what would he do to us?
Reagan had been backed by Wall Street in his run for the White House and they, along with right-wing Christians, wanted to restructure America and turn back the tide that President Franklin D. Roosevelt started — a tide that was intended to make life better for the average working person. The rich hated paying better wages and providing benefits. They hated paying taxes even more. And they despised unions. The right-wing Christians hated anything that sounded like socialism or holding out a helping hand to minorities or women.
People are often aggravated with the talking heads on television. I confess I am turned off listening to the screaming rhetoric from the right, and even sometimes from the left. The problem, of course, is that the talking heads have opinions – and they will express those opinions – which alienates those who do not agree (and sometimes, those who just want more moderation and agreement and compromise). Michael Moore is one those people with opinions he expresses, and who alienates those who do not agree. The opinion that life – our standard of living – is getting worse is an opinion, measurable by standards, that people might or might not agree with. This is Moore’s view of what Reagan did to America:
- The super-rich will make more, much much more, and the rest of you will scramble for the crumbs that are left.
- Everyone must work! Mom, Dad, the teenagers in the house! Dad, you work a second job! Kids, here’s your latch-key! Your parents might be home in time to put you to bed.
- 50 million of you must go without health insurance! And health insurance companies: you go ahead and decide who you want to help — or not.
- Unions are evil! You will not belong to a union! You do not need an advocate! Shut up and get back to work! No, you can’t leave now, we’re not done. Your kids can make their own dinner.
- You want to go to college? No problem — just sign here and be in hock to a bank for the next 20 years!
- What’s “a raise”? Get back to work and shut up!
The AFL-CIO “told its members to cross the picket lines of the air traffic controllers and go to work. And that’s just what these union members did. Union pilots, flight attendants, delivery truck drivers, baggage handlers — they all crossed the line and helped to break the strike. And union members of all stripes crossed the picket lines and continued to fly.”
That was the beginning of the end … and the end has been the past thirty years.
“Reagan and the Republicans knew they could get away with anything — and they did. They slashed taxes on the rich. They made it harder for you to start a union at your workplace. They eliminated safety regulations on the job. They ignored the monopoly laws and allowed thousands of companies to merge or be bought out and closed down. Corporations froze wages and threatened to move overseas if the workers didn’t accept lower pay and less benefits. And when the workers agreed to work for less, they moved the jobs overseas anyway….
Bit by bit, piece by piece, in the ensuing 30 years, those in power have destroyed the middle class of our country and, in turn, have wrecked the future for our young people. Wages have remained stagnant for 30 years. Take a look at the statistics and you can see that every decline we’re now suffering with had its beginning in 1981 (here‘s a little scene to illustrate that from my last movie).
Thirty Years Ago, Today. When is enough enough?
“Corporations are people, my friend!” And because corporations are people, people must be corporations. So, “my friend,” Mitt Romney is a corporation too! Because we have all been duped into thinking that Romney is a “person” just like you and me, he must also be a corporation, just like you and me.
The word corporation means “any group of persons united or regarded as united in one body,” which Romney think must mean just like him, because he has one body, not two, last he checked. But perhaps he forgot another definition of corporation, “an association of individuals, created by law or under authority of law, having a continuous existence independent of the existences of its members, and powers and liabilities distinct from those of its members,” which sounds kind of unlike a person.
Perhaps if Mitt Romney becomes a corporation he could run indefinitely for office, because he’ll never die. And, by the way, do corporations have to wait until 35 to be eligible to be the president?
Before I return to the irregularly scheduled political commentary, I must write about life and why there have been no posts in two weeks. There has been no shortage of things to write about. Debt. Riots. Recall elections. Dead soldiers. Fascinating subjects, all. And yet, I haven’t written about the manufactured debt ceiling crisis, solved in the last minutes of the eleventh hour. I haven’t written about why London is rioting. I haven’t written about why Israel is setting up tent cities. I haven’t written about recall elections in Wisconsin. And I haven’t said anything about the helicopter that was shot down in Afghanistan with a few dozen soldiers aboard.
At the end of July I went camping, complete with all the hectic plans involved in planning a trip. There were five of us, coming from four different cities. Just to make planning things easy, of course. I had no camping equipment, just to make things easy. So, coming in two different vehicles, one coming south, and one (me) coming north, we both got lost finding the campground. I knew what I was looking for, but a combination of Google, Google Maps, and my GPS got me good and confused – which proves my saying that you have to be smarter than the GPS. In the end, we two vehicles found what we were looking for around the same time, which is what we’d planned, given a five hour difference in departure time.
After two nights camping we spent several nights vacationing in Santa Barbara in my family home.. We saw downtown at night, and I’m reminded why I never walk downtown on a weekend night. I spent an afternoon visiting with second cousins whom I’d never met, then recommenced showing my friends Santa Barbara. We saw museums, two beaches, a Greek Festival, went Contra Dancing, and saw the beginning of the biggest annual event in Santa Barbara: Fiesta. Before Fiesta there was a dress rehearsal practice downtown – which was not part of our plan when we went downtown – and there was a dress rehearsal later at the mission, which was kind of hard to avoid because it’s a hundred yards from the house. We spent our last night watching Fiesta, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors to Santa Barbara every year.
Immediately after my friends left I packed my bag and drove a few hours to visit my brother and sister-in-law. My brother had a convocation for Physician’s Assistant school, which gave reason for my mom to visit, and for me to visit. Naturally, the first thing my brother asks after saying hello is questioning me about the debt deal which had just passed. We had a long conversation about debt and government, and I don’t think we quite agree but perhaps we understand each other. In some way or another, conversation about debt leads to conversation about 9/11 and conspiracy theory, so we watched “In Plane Sight,” about 9/11.
As soon as we picked my mom up from the airport the conversation shifted to the Affordable Care Act. Will it bankrupt us? How can we insure people? How can we ensure that people have insurance? Wouldn’t big companies just cut jobs rather than pay insurance, since it’s cheaper to do that? We already require hospitals to accept every visitor to the Emergency Room; the Affordable Care Act is designed to reduce how much it will cost hospitals to treat those many million uninsured people.
I stayed a day longer with my brother and sister-in-law than I’d planned, and left when they went to work and school. I also went to school, back to my alma mater high school. I went to say hello to Sergio, who works in the dining hall. Perhaps I shouldn’t have left when I did, because my poor car got a flat tire (an experience I am not used to). I sat there, looking at my deflating tire, just looking and thinking. I knew I couldn’t drive on it, and I knew I didn’t want to replace it. I got the spare, and a new tire. It took four stops instead of one to return to Santa Barbara.
And with that, I return to my irregular programming.
I hope you’ve had your head in the sand for the last several weeks, but if you haven’t you’ve probably heard that congress hasn’t been able to raise the debt ceiling and the United States might default on its debt right around August 2nd. “As Washington scrambles Sunday to avert default, the deficit of trust among leaders in Congress is becoming almost more important than the debt numbers themselves.” Speaker John Boehner is now suggesting that the same $3 trillion dollar deal take place in two increments. His “goal is to show his conservative rank and file that he has locked in savings at each step, but the process is so tilted against Democrats it risks blowing up in the Republicans’ face — with huge unknown consequences for both parties and the nation.”
Both parties are playing political games, with Republicans trying to force a second raising of the debt limit – unpopular and suddenly akin to treason in the Republican base – before the 2012 election, while Democrats are pushing the next vote beyond 2012 and trying to run the government and economy in longer than a three-month vote cycle.
The dual-track approach is, in the end, a roll of the dice on Boehner’s part, primarily because it does not guarantee that the debt ceiling will be increased enough to last the government through the 2012 election cycle. Obama has said he won’t sign such a bill, and Democratic leadership affirmed on Saturday that they would not support it either….
Even Boehner’s own party seemed skeptical that his plan could work.
While both parties play political games, those in charge of the economy have an actual task to accomplish.
“It’s unthinkable that this country will not meet its obligations on time. It’s just unthinkable we’d ever do that. It’s not going to happen,” [Treasury Secretary] Geithner said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
But the unthinkable is clearly being thought about. On Friday, Geithner met with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley to discuss “the implications for the U.S. economy if Congress fails to act.“
Both parties are playing games, but last time I checked the plurality of people would blame Republicans if the debt ceiling is not increased; the result of which is that the economy would collapse. Some in congress – particularly the vocal Bernie Sanders – know that both parties are playing games, and are tired of it.
Some people think that’s not so good [that Pell Grants nutrition programs, and others may not be there. If you think it’s a good idea that we enforce clean air and clean water provisions so that our kids can be healthy, those provisions may not be there because there will be major cuts in environmental protection], but at least our Republican friends are saying we need revenue and we’re going to get $1 trillion in revenue. But wait a minute. If you read the proposal, there are very, very clear provisions making sure that we are going to make massive cuts in programs for working families, for the elderly, for the children. Those cuts are written in black and white. What about the revenue? Well, it’s kind of vague. The projection is that we would rise over a 10-year period $100 billion in revenue. Where is that going to come? Is it necessarily going to come from the wealthiest people in this economy? Is it going to come from large corporations who are enjoying huge tax breaks? That is not clear at all. I want middle-class families to understand that when we talk about increased revenues, do you know where that comes from? It may come from cutbacks in the home mortgage interest deduction program, which is so very important to millions and millions of families. It may mean that if you have a health care program today, that health care program may be taxed. That’s a way to raise revenue. It may be that there will be increased taxes on your retirement programs, your I.R.A.’s, your 401(k)’s. But we don’t have the details for that. All we have is some kind of vague promise that we’re going to raise $1 trillion over the next 10 years, no enforcement mechanism and no clarity as to where that revenue will come from.
Meanwhile, despite polls showing that Republicans are to blame in the negotiations and will be blamed if negotiations fail, Boehner is still pushing the short-term incremental deal Democrats have said they won’t accept. If it’s not possible for a bipartisan plan to work Boehner said “I and my Republican colleagues in the House are prepared to move on our own;” how he plans to do that when Democrats have a majority in the Senate and control the executive branch will be fascinating. At least he recognizes that “it may be pretty hard to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.” His “last offer is still out there,” which is the $800 billion in revenue and massive spending cuts that Bernie Sanders elaborated on.
Norway is what we think of as a good country: the Legatum Prosperity Index places Norway as the top country in prosperity; Happiness and the Human Development Index also places Norway as the happiest country. Numerous other measures of happiness also rank Norway as the best, or one of the best, places. However, that does not stop yesterday, when attacks by a single person killed almost a hundred people in Norway. Violence does not create peace, and sometimes in peace there is violence.
While police are studying the suspect (there is only one), the media is laying blame and creating an atmosphere of guilty-and-we-know-why. Some things are likely to be accurate, such as,
It was revealed that the 32-year-old former member of the country’s conservative Progress Party – who had become ever more extreme in his hatred of Muslims, left wingers and the country’s political establishment – had ordered six tonnes of fertiliser in May to be used in the bombing. While police continued to interrogate Breivik, who was charged with the mass killings, evidence of his increasingly far right world view emerged from an article he had posted on several Scandinavian websites, including Nordisk – a site frequented by neo-Nazis, far right radicals and Islamophobes since 2009.
Other information is mere speculation. Was he inspired by Al-Qaeda? Or because 400 Norwegian troops are in Afghanistan? “Meanwhile, the Sun’s headline this morning (23-July-2011) screams ‘NORWAY’S 9/11’, and above the headline in red capitals ‘AL-QAEDA’ MASSACRE. It seems Murdoch’s Sun has already made up its mind.”
The way international terrorism is portrayed in the media leaves a lot to be desired. For example, why do the media refer to a group as Islamic or Islamist even when that group is operating in a Muslim country and targeting fellow Muslims, thus leaving the impression that the victims are non-Muslim? Why not simply use the name they give to themselves? A few months ago I gave a talk to sixth formers in a school in which I mentioned that more Muslims have been victims of al-Qaeda inspired terrorism than non-Muslims; there was astonishment at this fact.
Never mind that the suspect is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Norwegian with connections to the far-right political parties.
Norway, as already mentioned, is a land of peace. Peace is not only an intangible, happy, feeling, or a lack of war. It’s also a way of life. “From what I saw, there is — or was — no more open and trusting place left in the West, if not the world….People often leave the keys in their cars — and their cars running — while doing chores elsewhere.” There are, and have been, such places in America. They disappear by the wayside as the groves give way to housing developments that turn into foreclosed property. It makes me wonder what will happen in Norway.
Cut what again? Cap which leak? Balance? You try balancing this.
Megan McArdle theorizes on which things might happen if the US defaults. While that is an unlikely prospect, government functions in a reactionary manner, waiting until things have gone wrong before trying to fix them. Will any of these things go wrong if there’s no deal on August 2nd?
Let’s say that we refuse to raise the ceiling. Does the prioritization listed above [military payrolls, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid] mean that we don’t need to cut politically untouchable programs?
No. Let’s think through what would happen if we tried to use this plan:
- You just cut the IRS and all the accountants at Treasury, which means that the actual revenue you have to spend is $0.
- The nation’s nuclear arsenal is no longer being watched or maintained
- The doors of federal prisons have been thrown open, because none of the guards will work without being paid, and the vendors will not deliver food, medical supplies, electricity,etc.
- The border control stations are entirely unmanned, so anyone who can buy a plane ticket, or stroll across the Mexican border, is entering the country. All the illegal immigrants currently in detention are released, since we don’t have the money to put them on a plane, and we cannot actually simply leave them in a cell without electricity, sanitation, or food to see what happens.
- All of our troops stationed abroad quickly run out of electricity or fuel. Many of them are sitting in a desert with billions worth of equipment, and no way to get themselves or their equipment back to the US.
- Our embassies are no longer operating, which will make things difficult for foreign travellers
- No federal emergency assistance, or help fighting things like wildfires or floods. Sorry, tornado people! Sorry, wildfire victims! Try to live in the northeast next time!
- Housing projects shut down, and Section 8 vouchers are not paid. Families hit the streets.
- The money your local school district was expecting at the October 1 commencement of the 2012 fiscal year does not materialize, making it unclear who’s going to be teaching your kids without a special property tax assessment.
- The market for guaranteed student loans plunges into chaos. Hope your kid wasn’t going to college this year!
- The mortgage market evaporates. Hope you didn’t need to buy or sell a house!
- The FDIC and the PBGC suddenly don’t have a government backstop for their funds, which has all sorts of interesting implications for your bank account.
- The TSA shuts down. Yay! But don’t worry about terrorist attacks, you TSA-lovers, because air traffic control shut down too. Hope you don’t have a vacation planned in August, much less any work travel.
- Unemployment money is no longer going to the states, which means that pretty soon, it won’t be going to the unemployed people.
These are just the very immediate, very theatrical outcomes. Obviously, over any longer term, you’d have issues from bankrupt vendors stopping work funded with federal highway money, forgone maintenance on things like levees and government buildings, and so forth. Averting any of these things would require at least small cuts in Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid spending, or military payrolls.Now, maybe you look forward to these outcomes. There are certainly some on this list that I would be okay with. But because I am not delusional, and I did not fall off of a turnip truck last night, I recognize that the American public does not agree with me, and that if any of these things happen, they will freak out and besiege their local representatives. And as we can see from the examples in the New York Times article, when faced with demanding constituents, the new face of the GOP is not quite as steely-minded on the subject of spending as we have been told.
None of this is likely to happen on August 2nd. If there will ever be a deal – and there will be – Obama is willing to peremptorily raise the debt ceiling on a short-term basis, which he can do just by saying so at this point, because congressional leadership is OK with it. Also, our leaders – the ones who are real leaders, not just representatives – aren’t as foolish as we think they are. They know the consequences of not raising the debt limit, and if it’s in their interest to raise it – and it is in the interest of most leaders – it will be raised. It may even be improved. Or perhaps that’s too hopeful?
Congressional Republicans have a simple, unambiguous – though rarely said – goal in the talks and votes on the debt.
the GOP believe they can destroy the US and global economy and from the wreckage ensure Obama is not re-elected. That is their sole true guiding principle. They terrify me.
Andrew Sullivan’s view, which is very good, is that
Obama has essentially won the argument but not yet the fight. Today’s ABC News poll shows that 62 percent believe we need a mixture of tax hikes and spending cuts to deal with the debt, compared with only 32 percent wanting spending cuts alone. By far the most popular specific measure for tackling the debt is ending the Bush tax cuts for those earning over $250,000 a year – with a whopping 72 percent support. Its only near rivals are more Medicare and social security means-testing for wealthy retirees. 77 percent think the GOP has been too unwilling to compromise, compared with 58 percent who say the same of Obama. If this were a boxing match in the world of ideas, it would already have been won.
The Dole Blog 