Debt Ceiling Idiocy Shows the Dangers of Living in a Fantasyland
It's not even the good kind of fantasyland with rides
Debt Ceiling Showdown is Washington’s shittiest long-running show, and keep in mind: This city had The Capitol Steps for 39 years. No other country has a “DELAY ECONOMIC DESTRUCTION” button that needs to be pushed at periodic intervals in much the same way that Desmond on Lost had to punch numbers into a computer every 108 minutes to avoid Armageddon. Congress spends a lot of time responding to emergencies that they, themselves, created, much like an arsonist who also happens to be a volunteer firefighter.
I can’t tell you how much I don’t want to talk about the debt ceiling. I would rather pass Sputnik through my bowels than talk about the debt ceiling. I'd rather enter a common law marriage with a baboon. I’d rather attend an elementary school band recital every night until the sun burns out than address this needless, dangerous extortion attempt by the GOP’s Autobahn wing. But here we are, trying to find a way forward that’s compatible with the Bizarro World of false narratives that Republicans have been living in for years.
The first falsehood warping Republican brains is the idea that the deficit needs to be mostly or completely eliminated to avoid catastrophe. This idea has become a bedrock of Republican orthodoxy over the course of several decades. Remember the National Debt Clock, which showed up in Times Square in 1989? Remember the Balanced Budget Amendment that was part of Newt Gingrich’s 1995 Contract with America? Remember Paul Ryan’s YouTube videos, which were delivered with the solemn tone of a tough-love dad who’s worried about your marijuana use? Conservatives keep warning of a fiscal crisis that never comes. Of course, the kernel of truth here is that debt does matter; leftists who have convinced themselves that it doesn’t are in a cult every bit as deranged and disappointingly sexless as the Republican one. But it’s become an article of faith on the right that we must move the deficit towards zero AND FAST, which doesn’t comport with reality.