Robert Reich on the Teabaggers, Boehner, and the debt ceiling:
The Tea Partiers don’t care about the debt ceiling. To them, it’s a giant bargaining chit to shrink government. Nor do they worry about credit markets. If the full faith and credit of the U.S. government is no longer honored, so much the better.
You see, Tea Partiers hate government more than they hate the national debt. They refuse to reduce that debt with tax increases, even with tax increases on the wealthy, because a tax increase doesn’t reduce the size of government. The Tea Partiers’ real aim is to shrink the government.
But the Street and big business dislike the national debt more than they dislike government. [...]
Tea Partiers have almost as much contempt for big business and the Street as they do for government. After all, the Tea Party was born in anger over the Wall Street bailout.
This is the heart of the civil war in the GOP.
Boehner is siding with the Tea Partiers. Wall Street and big business hold the purse strings in the GOP but the Tea Partiers are now the ground troops. Boehner and his GOP colleagues figure Wall Street and big business will stake them in any event. They need Tea Partiers to get out the vote in 2012. And they’re afraid angry Tea Partiers will get out the vote against them in their own primaries.
But Boehner is playing with fire. If the debt ceiling isn’t raised and the financial system begins to collapse, the GOP loses not only Wall Street and big business. It loses everyone who’s still sane.
Bobby, Bobby, Bobby... You're a good economist and usually you're ahead of the curve on these deals, but 'sane' and 'Repugs'? That ship done sailed, son.
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