What Defaulting On Our Debt Would Actually Look Like

Why worry, just let the default happen. I think even the Media will see that the blame lies wholly with the Republican party. They do this EVERY TIME a Democrat is president and we hit the ceiling. The dems either have to raise it, or simply let it happen. The American people have been dumbed-down, but if the media frames the default properly it will be hard for even the dumbest to not see it was the GOP’s doing.

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Nope. The GOP prevented the Senate from passing this debt bill via threat of filibuster.

Your bothsiderism is despicable.

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One, they ran out of time, which is an explanation, not an excuse. The pending debt ceiling debacle did not come out of the blue, it was well known to everybody.

Two, there is no guarantee that the GOP senate would not have filibustered raising the debt ceiling. It may very well have been a bargaining chip to pass the omnibus appropriations bill for FYE 2023.

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The explanation I’ve heard that seems to fit best, is that it wasn’t guaranteed that all the Dem Senators would be on board with a pre-emptive move in the lame duck session. IIRC, Josh wrote about this here in an EdBlog.

Apparently, it’s not only the R’s who like using the debt limit as a hostage to get concessions. Notice how Manchin is now saying Biden should negotiate with the R’s in the House. He was probably one of the holdouts.

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Well…Sinema (spits) was just hanging out at Davos with Joe Manchin bragging about how she refused to reform the filibuster. And then she and Manchin high-fived.

Even though Mitch doesn’t want to default, he doesn’t want to be seen helping avoid default until the very last minute. So a debt ceiling bill would have been filibustered.

So I think the short answer is that despite nominal control of both houses, the democrats didn’t actually have the votes to get it passed.

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BTW, I watched this on Tubi (free) in the wee hours this morning and it’s eye opening.

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Are you paying interest on a car loan, a mortgage, your credit cards? How much do you want to see that interest rate increase?

The government pays interest on its loans too, and the rates charged by other countries that hold our debt will rise. Everything in government then gets more expensive if the US defaults, which means either increased taxation or reduction in services (in this political climate, it’s reduction in services).

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Sorry …didn’t see anything “bothsider” about @RAP’s post. Looked to be a simple question.

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RAP blamed the House and the Senate, not the GOP, for the failure last year to settle the debt issue.

That’s bothsiderism in my book, not just a simple question by RAP. Your book seems to be missing critical sections.

I was strongly of this opinion until Dobbs. Now I’m inclined to think this isn’t just the right moment.

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When it comes time to pass a new debt ceiling bill, those twenty or so Reps won’t matter since the rest of the caucus will join the Democrats in passing the bill. It will be another loss for those twenty or so Reps.

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Because the GOP believes strongly in living in a country that has “haves and have nots”.

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“He who seeks to be unhappy will find many ways to prove his course”
100 Eyes (fictional Taoist monk)

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There are only two legitimate outcomes:

The 14th amendment is validated.

The 14th amendment is invalidated.

If SCOTUS is going to invalidate the 14th amendment, that’s a lot of blood and mud on their hands and the Republic has no good outcome.

Dobbs was not a retraction of a legitimate constitutional amendment - there was nothing in the Constitution that specifically called out abortion. This amendment says we pay our bills, no questions asked, period. If we’re throwing that out the window, then pretty much the entire Constitution goes with it.

The Roberts court may well do that, but maybe it’s time to find this out - that the Constitution only applies some of the time or none of the time.

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I suspect more than 20 will join the Dems (we only need something like six), because no one with half a brain wants the default of the country on their resumes.

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So bothsiderism has its roots in Taoism?

For some reason that made me think of Herzog’s “Happy People.”

I need to watch that again.

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I’m saying the then-Dem majorities should have taken action during the lame duck period before the House majority became GOP to keep this weapon out of reach of the Republicans, given their criminality. But that is not intended in any way to suggest that I see both sides as equally responsible. The Republicans are the arsonists here.

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But the Senate requires 60 votes, 9 more than waht the Dems can provide.

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Ha! I just did watch “Happy People” again.
It’s one of my favorite docs.

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