Robert Reich agrees with me

Back a few posts ago, I said that 'The Tea Party is Winning'.  Well, Robert Reich, HuffPost columnist and former Secretary of Labor for the Clintons, agrees with me on that.


The Ongoing War: After the Battle Over the Cliff, the Battle Over the Debt Ceiling 

Quotes:

 "On it goes, battle after battle in what seems an unending war that began with the election of
Tea-Party Republicans in November, 2010."

"But they're not debating this, because the federal deficit is not what this war is about.

It's about the size of government. Tea-Party Republicans (and other congressional Republicans
worried about a Tea-Party challenge in their next primary) want the government to be much smaller.

"My goal," says conservative guru Grover Norquist, "is to cut government in half in twenty-five
years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

So as long as the Tea Party forces a battle over a thing like the debt ceiling -- which they should never do, because they don't want to tank the economy (we don't think)* -- then they are winning.

And when they're winning, they're also f*cking up the whole country, because nothing they are doing or trying to do has any basis in reality.

 * Quoting Greg Sargent from the Washington Post's Plum Line:

"Indeed, you can read through reams of the coverage without learning three basic facts about this fight:
1) Republican leaders will ultimately agree to raise the debt ceiling, and they know it, because they themselves have previously admitted that not doing so will badly damage the economy.
2) Because of the above, a hike in the debt ceiling is not something that Democratic leaders want and that Republican leaders don’t. In other words, it is not a typical bargaining chip in negotiations, in the way spending cuts (which Republicans want and Dems don’t) or tax hikes (which Dems want and Republicans don’t) are.
3) And so, if and when Republicans do agree to raise the debt ceiling, it will not constitute any kind of concession on their part — even though they will continue to portray it as such to demand concessions in return. It will only constitute Republicans agreeing not to damage the whole country, which does not constitute (one hopes) them making a sacrifice."

 So it is now up to us -- and to me -- to write directly to John Boehner and President Obama and tell them that we will not accept any negotiation over the debt ceiling increase -- BECAUSE WE KNOW THAT THE REPUBLICANS WILL EVENTUALLY VOTE TO RAISE IT.

Either that, or seriously risk getting blamed for tanking both our economy and the rest of the world's.