No Deus ex Machinas Today

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I’ve cruised around looking for any significant development on the debt ceiling front, and at the moment everyone seems to be pretty much mired in the same holes they were in yesterday.

The CBO has decided that Sen. Harry Reid’s debt ceiling deal actually would cut the deficit more than Rep. John Boehner’s, and of course Boehner denies this.

This is Ezra’s version of optimism —

Boehner’s plan will need to fail to convince Republicans of the political reality that they can’t get past the Senate without compromising. There’s a good chance that the market will need to panic or the government will have to stop sending out checks to convince Republicans of the economic reality that compromising to lift the debt ceiling is a necessary thing to do.

But once those two facts are established, the Reid and Boehner plans are fairly similar to one another, and it’s not that difficult to see how they can be merged into a final compromise.

Easy for rational people, perhaps. Easy for your average Cub Scout troop. Easy for a kennel of border collies. But Congress? Puh-leeze. (And there are some fresh reports that congressional Republicans are rallying behind Boehner’s plan, which the President has sworn to veto.)

But isn’t Ezra saying here that we’re going to have to default before the House Republicans will get serious about preventing default? That doesn’t cheer me up much.

These go back a couple days, but here are a couple of links for reference —

How the Deficit Got This Big

Obama’s and Bush’s effects on the deficit in one graph

24 thoughts on “No Deus ex Machinas Today”

  2. The President has sworn to veto the Boehner plan. The Boehner plan and the Reid plan are very similar. How can Obama sign either or a combination thereof?

  3. Tick-tock, the clock’s winding down…

    Here are the choices as I see them:
    -The Republicans fold, for a variety of reasons.
    -The Democrats fold, for a variety of reasons.
    -Some compromise is reached – like a combo Boehner/Reid bill (but I don’t think there’ll be enough time if it isn’t done soon – like right now!), and isn’t filibustered by that epic religious moron – Jim DeMint.
    -Obama uses the 14th.
    -Corporations swoop in and read the riot act to Republicans and Teabaggers (see first option above).
    -Nothing is done, and the poo-poo hits the ventilator.

    I had another horrible thought –
    What if the Kabuki isn’t between the Democrats and the Republicans, but between Republicans and Corporations?

    What if our Galtian Overlords have figured out that they’ve socked enough away and can withstand the hit over the next few weeks, months, years, if they then get what they want afterwards:
    -A destiture, desperate work force willing to work any hours under any conditions at any age for any pay – with no breaks or benefits or any kind.
    -Privatization, or rather, Profitization, of safety net programs.
    -Elimination of financial and business regulations.
    -Elimination of envorionmental regulations.
    -Low, or no, taxes.
    Etc., etc., etc…

    That may be the ‘Satan ex Machina’ that no one wants to think about, let alone acknowledge.

  4. Even after the CBO makes Boehner go home and do his homework over, the House GOP still doesn’t get it. Boehner is a willful idiot.

    I caught Gov. Voldemort of Florida on CNN this morning; the anchors all practically shouted at him that he was misstating the purpose of raising the debt ceiling– he kept referring to future spending, and they all kept shouting that the debt ceiling refers only to paying debts already incurred. More willful idiocy, and for ten minutes the MSM actually called a Repug on it.

    It bears repeating: the House GOP still doesn’t get it. The Tea Party doesn’t get it. Only a tiny portion of the MSM gets it. I keep hoping the public is starting to get it. Maybe we are.

  5. “And there are some fresh reports that congressional Republicans are rallying behind Boehner’s plan, which the President has sworn to veto.”

    The president should embrace the boners latest scheme, that would ensure failure in the house for sure. I think at this point if the President threatened a veto for any tax increases the bush tax cuts would be repealed tomorrow.

  7. The President has sworn to veto the Boehner plan. The Boehner plan and the Reid plan are very similar. How can Obama sign either or a combination thereof?

    The two plans aren’t that similar, IMO, but the biggest difference is that the Boehner plan would require another vote on the debt ceiling in about six months, which is what the President has said is unacceptable about it. Reid’s plan would provide for a high enough ceiling to get us through to the end of 2012, after the election.

    Reid’s plan also makes no provision for the Bush tax cuts, one way or another, which means it doesn’t prevent them from expiring. Reid swears his plan doesn’t touch Social Security, Medicaid, or Medicare. It’s biggest cuts are from money taken out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Boehner’s plan calls for immediate cuts in domestic discretionary spending, which probably means Medicare.

    Here’s a side by side comparison. They do look a lot alike if you are just looking at numbers.

  8. Boehner’s plan will need to fail to convince Republicans of the political reality that they can’t get past the Senate without compromising.

    They don’t want to compromise. They don’t want to get past the Senate. They don’t want to govern. They don’t want to do anything except get Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to tell the people who elected them that they should vote for them again.

    That’s all they want.

  11. Silver just busted $40.00 per oz. This is not a good sign.( actually, not bad since I bought a bunch at 7.00 per!)
    “Gov. Voldemort of Florida”. Good one, Joanr16.
    He’s polling around 25% these days, same percentage of the T-Tards.

  12. Hi, guys and gals, I am turning off and tuning out. I have read about 10 blogs today and it was nothing but this debt ceiling stuff over and over and over. There is nothing I can do to move things along or come up with a solution. I am bored to tears with this subject. Thus, for the next week or two, I will not be here. I will miss you all; but, I need some good entertainment. I am going to watch movies on TV, go to movies; and tune out all news, news programs, etc. I may even get a book out and read. But from here on in for a bit, I will be vacationing in my apartment and living a life dictated to me by my two lovely cats. Take care everyone! And, keep up the good work, Maha!

  13. Tick-tock, the clock’s winding down…

    LMAO…Boehner wants more time! Seems things aren’t going according to plan and Boehner is finding himself in a pickle..As a matter of fact, I think Boehner is pickled. He spent too much time bending elbows when the should have been twisting arms.

    Here’s a beautiful tune that goes out to Boehner.. ‘Reloj deten tu camino porque mi vida se apaga ”

    ”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8be5pmO_G_M

  14. Boner was actually re-crafting his bill to make it LESS likely to pass last night– moving it to the right when Obama already said it was unacceptable. If that isn’t madness…..

    Well, there’s Mittens today, who said he’d like Christie or Rubio for a running mate. Makes sense to me; pick characters with plummeting approval ratings in their home states?

  16. CundGulag said:

    I had another horrible thought –
    What if the Kabuki isn’t between the Democrats and the Republicans, but between Republicans and Corporations? What if our Galtian Overlords have figured out that they’ve socked enough away and can withstand the hit over the next few weeks, months, years, if they then get what they want afterwards

    Gulag, you may be right. Expanding on that a bit, if you were a rich CEO and absolutely knew that the USA would default on its debt, you could make a lot of money. You would, for example, short the stock market, buy gold, silver and foreign currencies. Furthermore, you can make use of what are called “options” which will multiply any upward/downward effect of stock prices several times over. I won’t go into the details of explaining how options work, but for those who don’t already know and are interested, see:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_(finance)

    Without insider knowledge, buying options is very risky. But if you’re a CEO of a hedge fund and you have the insider knowledge, it can be wildly profitable. If the Wall St banksters have already set up their investments to profit from a market crash, then they’ll do everything to ensure that the crash occurs. In which case, such crash is all but guaranteed to happen.

    I do not, in fact, know if the corporate pigs have already decided to crash the market for fun and profit, but it’s a realistic possibility.

    As for the rest of us “little people” out there, it’s a bit late and (without insider knowledge) very risky to start loading up on stock options or gold, so I’m not recommending it. I will, however, suggest keeping a stockpile of well-hidden cash someplace in your house or buried in the back yard, and a fair bit of dried or canned food. I do not know what’s going to happen, but a bank run is not out of the question, in which case ATMs may be shut down. The Boy Scout motto is “Be Prepared” and in these uncertain times we should all be thinking along those lines.

  17. I try to identify opinion or speculation as something separate from fact. Observation – the Tea Party freshmen in the House have hung together way better than a bunch of cookies to politics should, defying the Speaker and operating in denial of facts presented by their own GOP leadership. I’m thinking of something Barbara linked to Sundayish maybe 10 days ago about attempts by the Speaker to impress on the Teabaggers how high the stakes are. And they weren’t buying it. Contrast the House Teabaggers with Scott Brown, who is conservative, but based on his voting record, takes orders from nobody.

    So if the Tea Party is giving Boehner the middle finger, who are they taking orders from? Norquest? Maybe. The Kotch Brothers financed the Tea Party. But I come back to my original thought. Was this group vetted for their loyalty to Norquest/Kotch ahead of party and ahead of country? Paranoid thought? Absolutely. But am I wrong?

  18. But am I wrong?

    Doug, I don’t think they were vetted for loyalty, I think it’s more of a case of like Maha has said in the past..”You dance with the one who brung ya.”

  19. There are sane Republicans and there are Tea Party Repubs, perhaps more accurately named Tantrum Republicans, or Cloud Cuckoo Land Republicans (apologies to Aristophanes and Schopenhauer!). Tantrum Repubs are endangering our social and economic life right now, and they don’t seem to care. Unfortunately, these tantrum throwers can’t be sent to the corner of the room… a tragedy we will all be forced to share.

  20. Off the subject of the disgraceful Teepee Republicans—Does anyone recall the furor stirred up in the winter of 2011 by a Republican state state legislator from Georgia who introduced bills to(1) abolish drivers licenses and (2) redefine rape victims as mere accuser and not victims of a brutal crime.

    The very pious Mr. Franklin was perhaps best known for his service to the far right-wing of the Republican Party and his for repeated over-the-top denunciations of gay people.

    On July 26, 2011 Mr. Franklin was found dead at his swank home in Cobb County Georgia. The coroner has declared the cause of death to be unknown and the police have little to say as yet. But there is speculation about Mr. Franklin’s highly secretive liaisons with young and well proptioned males.

  21. (Deus) In my enlightenment of practical logical reality of mind.Thinking deeply D.E.U.S. [Dialectic-Eclectic-Universal-Science] And that {S} also stand for salvation and that salvation meaning to protect from harm or danger. Since from what my experience tells me in the last 78 years of trying to understand life and self in life with reality and actuality.Making comparative studies in my limited knowledge of what is universal based on the definitions of words and languages and my mother tongue which is Creolu. It seems to me that Knowledge (Science) that human frailties and human weakness of mankind in our growth over aeon of time and constant change to where we are today. Reality of what is or is not with out being delusional I think with or without the ego. What seems to be important is to arrive to being a responsible person with good conduct for harmony for peace,kindness and grace which some would call love or in my mother tongue morabeza. Every day I struggle with the reality if what I think is right or wrong,right meaning not to hurt people or animals wrong is to be hateful that is hostility or animosity to any one. All of this also I think depends on how we define words in any language in the lexicon of definition which can have many variables.
    To be at peace and in harmony with one self mind,I think the mind controls the body,on the other side of that coin much depends on the environment and the conditions that exsist,which formulates what we call culture;(cultivation of mind)
    At this point I must let the reader know many different reading of other minds has some influence but the man that help me to come to this point of mind set is The late Amilcar Cabral aka Abel-Djassi who was an Engineer of agronomy and weight and measures. My prognosis (Prognostic) is that the two words that are synonymous are:(Righteousness & Responsibility) Cabral made the word Responsibility take hold in my mind set and I saw that it responsibility equate to righteousness. Which would seem to me that would discipline and proper enlightenment (Education) and obedience to that absolute mathematical equation might be a step in the right direction which most have great difficulty to put into practice.We can ask why? Simply that in our development we have not arrived in the balance of what for a lack of better reasoning of what we might think of as perfection. Well that is how I feel about that so I am in the mind set of A_B_C_D_E. all the way to Z from what is called Allah to Zeus and all in between in terms of definitions in what folk call a deity which for me at this time is part of or has been my mindfulness training. The Force and power of the universe which we explore every day in space and out of space,breathing in and breathing out which is the life we live until we expire. I do wish Morabeza to all. Thank you for your kindness. Manu Salah

    • M.c. Elder — OK. This is a blog about U.S. politics, though, not whatever it is you are writing about. “Deus ex machina” refers to an unlikely plot device in fiction literature; something like Superman showing up on an episode of Law and Order to catch the perp.

  22. I know was that not funny. Can you imagine that that was it the unlikely plot in fiction like SUPERMAN WHAT LAW AND ORDER? ARE YOU SURE? MAHA YOU ARE SO CUTE.

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