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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHeld hostage by Hastert: a minority of one chamber threatens the whole country
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But more interesting that second-guessing that Administration's true intentions is taking stock of the perversity of the situation. It's not just that Republicans are threatening to take the entire nation off an economic cliff if they don't get their way. It's not just that the gerrymandered House is refusing to play ball with the White House and the Senate. Nor is it just that a party that dramatically lost a big election is refusing to abide by the results of that election.
It's that a minority of a single chamber of the government is holding the country hostage. If John Boehner brings to the floor raising the debt ceiling while simply funding most of the programs cut by the sequester, a majority of House would vote for it: nearly all the Democrats, and enough Republicans either sane or more threatened from the left than from the right. But having violated the Hastert rule over the fiscal cliff, it would be nearly political suicide to do it again on the sequester where the rabid right wing feels it holds all the cards.
So what is threatening to send the country toppling into default is purely John Boehner's ambitions to remain the Speaker, and an arcane "rule" that makes an already sclerotic government completely inoperable. A slim majority just of the House Republican caucus--a minority in the House overall--is holding the entire country hostage not through the regular Constitutional checks and balances, but through yet another abuse of yet another arcane voluntary rule that almost no one who isn't a political obsessive knows about.
The need to enact major reforms to the American legislative system has never been more clear.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/held-hostage-by-hastert-minority-of-one.html
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Defaulting on the debt and driving the world into another recession threathens the planet.
Flashmann
(2,140 posts)If it were another *country* threatening to tank the global economy to further their own narrow ends,could the U.S. legitimately consider the actions bringing on that tanking,were it to actually occur,an "act of war"?..Would we?.....
If so,why would we expect that a particular country not make that presumption,when "we" do it?...
*I say country on my own assumption that their general populace,and perhaps even some Government leaders,may not make a distinction between the U.S. and one political party....Not that I'd expect,say,Italy,to invade us,but maybe institute some trade embargos,travel restrictions,raise hell with American Corporate holding,in those countries....