Now everything is fine

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 0 Comment

Both kinds of white dudes

Remember on Friday when we declared American politics too selfishly broken to address the basic management of the United States? It turns out we were wrong, because the President and congressional leaders reached a deal on the national debt ceiling last night. The package still needs the support of both houses—including several notoriously intransigent members—but tentatively, maybe even presumably, the lights are going to stay on. “Sausage making is not pretty,” Diane Feinstein told the Times. “But the sausage we have, I think, is a very different sausage from when we started.” And in the end, isn’t that what we all what from our food? Different?

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Friday links! Going out of business edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 2 Comments

An American patriot finally has the common sense to demand no more taxes and no more debt.

I don’t want to alarm you, but this is probably going to be the last weekend in America. Congress has until Tuesday to raise the debt ceiling, and to paraphrase the Magic 8-Ball, outlook not good. It is possible that ours will become the first generation in history to cause a US federal default, not by calamity or foreign depredation but by our respective insistences that we are right about everything. The Republican Party, having thus far produced a proposal guaranteed not to win any Democratic votes, has doubled down on partisanship by adding a balanced budget amendment. Harry Reid has announced that such a bill is dead on arrival in the Senate, even as he reminds us how important it is to pass something. With default 96 hours away, each party is working tirelessly to assure the American people that disaster is the other party’s fault. Being an American citizen on July 29, 2011 is like riding in the back seat of a car driven by a bickering couple, one of whom refuses to open his eyes and the other of whom won’t give directions.

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Terrify yourself with graphs and arguments that cannot be evaluated

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 1 Comment

The Gang of Six, a coalition of Democratic and Republican legislators who might do something and the economy will collapse or not

Remember when we gave the government a monopoly on force and authorized various representatives to collect and disburse resources on our behalf? It’s possible that was a mistake. Either that or it’s business as usual on the reeking shores of the Potomac, and the leaders of both parties are holding our national anxiety level hostage for whatever advantage they can derive without pushing us to real crisis. It’s difficult for the layperson to decide just how seriously to take our present negotiations over the debt ceiling. Economists agree that a default would wreak awful damage on the economy, except the markets haven’t really responded. Congress raises the limit pretty much every year, except for the last two weeks the President has been walking out of meetings and Eric Cantor has whined like a young lady who needs a nap. The GOP refuses to consider any revenue increases even as they accuse the President of intransigence, and Harry Reid is a wiener. So whom, to paraphrase the Joker, do you trust?

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Symbolic: GOP returns styrofoam to House cafeteria

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 3 Comments

A cup I drank out of in 1983

American conservatism has always placed a high premium on the past, but it was not until its victories in the last election that the Republican party made good on its promise to actually reverse the flow of time. In the spirit of fiscal responsibility fuck you, the GOP has reintroduced Styrofoam to the House cafeteria. In theory, this measure will save the American taxpayer half a million dollars per year.* That it also undoes one of Nancy Pelosi’s pet projects and magically transports all diners to the year Back To the Future came out is just a fun bonus. The more you think about it, the more the switch back to Styrofoam is an incredibly versatile signifier. I submit that the Styrofoam cup is the best symbol yet for the Republican party: it’s white, it seemed like a great idea in the eighties, it’s made of oil, and even though you’re done with it, it’s going to be around for 500 years.

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McConnell says he’ll block any tax package without cut for top 2%

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 1 Comment

Mmmmmgyea.

Shortly after House Republican leader/medium-market weatherman John Boehner signaled his willingness to consider an extension of the Bush tax cuts that excludes the wealthiest 2% of Americans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he’ll block any such package. Speaking on the floor Monday, he opined that “only in Washington could someone propose a tax hike as an antidote to a recession.” Like much of what the senator from Kentucky says, that statement is technically honest. Under current law, the Bush tax cuts will expire in 2010. Letting them lapse—either by not voting to extend them, voting to extend them for everyone but households making over $250,000 a year or, say, filibustering the vote to extend them—would therefore constitute a tax hike, in that some or all taxes would become higher than they are now. Of course, by that reasoning, McConnell is proposing a tax hike as an antidote to the possibility that his party might compromise with a Democratic President. Only in Washington, indeed.

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