I knew things were bad. I didn’t think things were this bad.
Even if the debt ceiling crisis is resolved in time — and I’m still betting it will be — this moment should be a shock for everyone.
The national divide — which was born as a color-coded, red-and-blue map legend — has gotten to the point where stepping up to the brink of financial catastrophe is entirely believable.
We’re this close. We’re a week from a huge, entirely self-inflicted wound that might well take years to heal. It’s not just dangerous. It’s embarrassing. This would require the richest country in the world walking away from its obligations. It’s like giving your neighborhood repo man the keys to Air Force One.
It’s dangerous. It’s embarrassing. And it’s dysfunction at a level you didn’t think possible even in Washington.
Brinkmanship is an age-old device. But brinkmanship works only with the expectation that at least one side will eventually compromise. As one pundit mentioned, Washington is a town full of statues of guys who specialized in making tough compromises. This is also a town, just now, where some people (some of them running for president) don’t think default would be all that bad.
The almost-funny part is, if the nation does go into default, if we don’t pay all our bills, if we have to choose between paying Social Security recipients and paying those risking their lives fighting our wars, if we’re willing to allow our AAA rating to slip away, if we’re ready to tax ourselves by letting interest rates jump, it won’t be for any great principle.
It will be simply because of a profound refusal to agree to agree.
The issue that could send us to default is so transparently political — the newfound Republican principle that you can’t have too many debt ceiling crises. You need one now. You need another one six months from now.
And that’s it.
In the Republican plan, there must be another debt-ceiling vote before the 2012 election, so we can see another phony baloney crisis that could rattle the economy, rattle the markets and, of course, rattle the voters.
The rest is just for show. Obviously, President Barack Obama doesn’t want another fight. It’s not in his interest. But it’s not in the market’s interest either.
Whatever the reason, Democrats are trying desperately to let the Republicans win on this issue, even as the Republicans refuse to declare victory and let us all go home.
The latest Democratic offer sees Harry Reid offering up a plan asking for $2.7 trillion in cuts and no new revenue. Revenue, remember, was supposed to be the make-or-break point for Democrats. That was it: No cuts without new revenues. It was the so-called “balanced plan” that Obama was still trying to sell Monday night.
What we’ve got here, besides the failure to communicate, is a complete lack of balance.
You can argue that Reid’s plan includes fuzzy-math savings, the same kind of math Paul Ryan used in his budget plan. What Republicans don’t like to admit is that Reid’s plan is basically the deal that they wanted in the beginning of this debate, back when they decided to turn this debt ceiling fight into a death match.
Raising the debt ceiling is routine. You’ve heard the talking points. Ronald Reagan did it 11 times, George W. Bush seven times. Barack Obama, as a senator, voted against a Bush plan for the usual political purposes. But there was no threat of default then. It was a game. The game should be over.
And yet, House Republicans reject a plan that every liberal hates just as much they do. It’s no secret why.
If you watched John Boehner’s response to Obama’s speech, you saw the answer. You saw Boehner’s heat compared to Obama’s cool. If Boehner wants to pass a plan, it can’t be an Obama plan. When he offered his own plan Monday, many from the Tea Party wing of his party instantly rejected it.
There is no plan that Boehner can get past his caucus that can get through the Senate. That isn’t unusual by itself. Think back to 2008 when the House voted down the TARP bill and the market crashed. There was a crisis, and there was a new vote.
That was then. It’s strange to think now that a few days ago it looked as if Obama and Boehner were near a Grand Bargain, a mix of real cuts and some tax reform and some entitlement reform.
Now it’s too late for a good deal. Let’s just hope it’s not too late for any deal.
E-mail Mike Littwin at mlittwin@denverpost.com.
