July 14, 2011, 8:30 pm
Anarchists and Tasseled Loafers
By TIMOTHY EGAN
Who would put at risk, at a time when most people are hurting from a gasping economy, the monthly issuance of life-supporting funds for wounded veterans, disabled children, countless elderly couples living on barely $2,000 a month — all told, over 70 million checks that go out each month?
Who would risk pushing the livelihoods of businesses small and big off a cliff by an interest rate spike, possibly igniting a second recession as the credit-rating agencies have just suggested — essentially saying “blow your brains out, America,” as Warren Buffett phrased it?
Who would risk this anarchists’ storm, rather than a pass a formality: extending the borrowing authority of the United States so the country can pay bills from the past? Certainly, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, cannot find anyone so reckless in Washington. “Nobody is talking about not raising the debt ceiling,” he said last Sunday. “I haven’t heard that from anybody.”
Either he’s deaf to the roar on his right or he’s speaking exclusively to that diminishing other wing of his party, the Tasseled Loafers. Not only is Michele Bachmann, a leading Republican presidential candidate, saying a government default is nothing to worry about, but a core group of 59 House Republicans have indicated they will not raise the debt ceiling under any circumstances, according to House Speaker John Boehner.
That’s right: no matter how much President Obama gives them — from curbing entitlements to cuts in excess of $3 trillion — this cadre of radical Republicans is taking the burn-it-all-down position. They don’t want to see the terms of a deal because there is no deal they will accept. That’s their stated position.
With this step, what the chaos caucus has proven is that they have no interest in governing. They didn’t go to Washington to find solutions; they went there to destroy the place.
Symbolic of the Tasseled Loafers’ hold on power was that dinner of Rep. Paul Ryan last week, in which the House budget-writer shared a pair of $350 bottles of wine with a hedge fund manager and a free-market economist. When the story broke, he was embarrassed enough to issue a copy of his credit card receipt showing he paid for at least one of the bottles of 2004 Echezeaux grand cru Burgundy himself, and was not simply being courted in violation of lobbying rules.
I don’t care how rich guys spend their money, or even if a congressman pays as much for a single bottle of wine as some fellow Americans get for their weekly unemployment checks. Ryan is the architect of a budget that gives even more tax breaks for the corporate elite while making the elderly pay for diminished Medicare with coupons. Nobody should be surprised when he drinks $350 wine with people who want continue the policies of economic inequality.
But the dinner is instructive as a picture of power. Throughout these debt ceiling negotiations, I’ve been waiting for the Republicans’ corporate overlords to jerk their chain. And finally, a few days ago, the Business Roundtable, in a letter signed by more than 350 C.E.O.’s, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a dire warning — the game of chicken is up. They said what others who have a large stake in this economy have said: that default could cause a multi-billion dollar crash, affecting everything from auto loans to credit-card debt.
And so, in response to the Tasseled Loafers’ concern, McConnell tried again, saying, “We think it’s extremely important that the country reassure the markets that default is not an option.”
Note who is getting the reassurance from the Senate Republican leader. But it may be too late. The loafers may want to retreat to their wine cellars until this thing blows over. A renegade wing of their party is lighting fires and throwing rocks (metaphorically, of course!). Once they got a taste of smoke in their nostrils, the anarchists realized they could smash the place up, maybe even burn it down, and no one would stop them. After Aug. 2, the default deadline, the smell will go bad, quickly.