Grab the popcorn: GOP-vs-GOP-fight over debt-ceiling is looming for March 2017

[DetlefK]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/12/17/1612196/-Trump-risks-U-S-default-with-debt-ceiling-denier-Mulvaney-as-budget-chief#read-more

Friday was no exception, as President-elect Trump made the latest addition to his Kamikaze Cabinet by selecting South Carolina Republican Congressman Mick Mulvaney to direct the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Rep. Mulvaney, after all, didn't just pledge to vote against any increase in the nation's debt ceiling. As it turns out, the Freedom Caucus fanatic has rejected the inescapable truth that the United States of America would default by failing to do so.

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But GOP default deniers like Michele Bachmann dismissed those predictions out of hand. Bachmann accused Secretary Geithner of "outright blatant lies" and "scare tactics." For his part, Rep. Mulvaney scoffed at the warnings despite his own admission that he didn't know what would happen if the U.S. defaulted on its debt.

...

Ultimately, the United States didn't default on its debt in the summer of 2011. The Budget Control Act, the same agreement which imposed the "sequester" on future federal spending, included a deal to raise the debt ceiling. Nevertheless, America paid a price as the GOP's manufactured uncertainty over the economy stifled job creation, drove down consumer confidence and led Standard & Poor's to lower Uncle Sam's credit rating. It's with good reason the Republican blackmail came to be known as the "Tea Party Downgrade."

Still, Donald Trump's future OMB pick kept up his assault on economic reality. In the fall of 2013, Mulvaney voted against a budget deal that ended the GOP's government shutdown and raised the debt ceiling. Two years later, he was among House Republicans "demanding changes to entitlement programs as part of any debt-ceiling package." That same fall of 2015, Mick Mulvaney helped engineer the resignation of House Speaker John Boehner and pushed Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's so-called "Cut, Cap and Balance" bill which "would slash the 2016 deficit in half, put a cap on spending, and require Congress to pass a balanced budget before raising the debt ceiling."

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The debt ceiling will have to be raised in March 2017. ... At the same time, Trump already promised he would eliminate the entire national debt "I would say over a period of eight years." ... The inevitable result would be a U.S. default, an American economic implosion—or both. That risk is higher still when President Trump's budget brain doesn't believe that increasing the debt ceiling is a necessity or that default is a bad thing.



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Let's see:
* We have guys like McConnel and Ryan (and every single guy on Wall Street) who know that the debt-ceiling must be raised or else very bad things will happen.
* We have Tea Party-guys like Mulvaney who dispute that bad things would happen at all.
* We have a US President who is convinced that he can weasel and strongarm his way out of any debt.


The Democrats should say: "You know what? YOU do this governing thing. We'll sit this one out."