White House crying wolf...again

The Treasury Dept is asking the congress to raise the debt ceiling…again. The White House has jettisoned Senator B-HO’s 2006 stance on the debt ceiling:


“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”

In favor of this new and improved White House position:

“The impact [of not raising the debt ceiling] on the economy would be catastrophic. I mean, that would be a worse financial economic crisis than anything we saw in 2008.”

You’d have to turn to the Kamasutra for a more dramatic position change.

I don’t believe the White House’s new position on the debt ceiling. Remember the banking crisis that argued that if we didn’t do something in 72 hours the whole world economy would collapse? Well 72 hours came and went. The world continued to rotate on its axis. Then after weeks of negotiations the TARP bill was passed and nothing much has changed since. We bailed out troubled banks that need bailing out…again. We ignored the real crux and genesis of the problem Fanny and Freddie by bailing them out without first reforming them. Now, they need bailing out…again.

I think big government has cried wolf once too often. White House wonks and big government boobs claim that we cannot let the US default on loans. Let’s not call it default. That’s such an ugly word. Let’s call it deferring payment. Let’s do to the world what B-HO did to GM and Chrysler share holders – screw ‘em. Remember when P-BO snatched control of those once great American car companies, he did so by screwing share holders in favor of union thugs that were 40% responsible for bankrupting the companies in the first place. 10% of blame lies with company management that made providing lush health care benefits and pension set ups to the unions more important than building cars. The other 50% of the blame lies with government interference in the industry and its ridiculous CAFÉ standards that has done as much as anything to wreck the American automobile industry.

Besides wouldn’t failing to raise the debt ceiling be a great sign to the world that we were actually serious about getting our fiscal house in order? The short term pain would lead to long term gain. Ahhhh, but Americans are always more interested in the quarterly returns than the long health of any financial adventure.

The boy who cried wolf will have the whole town turning out to save his butt one more time. Hopefully this time around Republicans will be able to use the threat of a shut down to make Scrawny Harry this war is lost Reid eat an excrement sandwich and squeeze some real concessions out of Demo-Dopes on spending and budget reform.

But don’t hold your breath on that one. And yeah, I know what happened to the Boy Who Cried Wolf at the end of the story - he got what he deserved.