The Debt Ceiling: Washington’s Summer Thriller Terrifies the Poor and Elders

[Donnachaidh]

http://newamericamedia.org/2011/07/the-debt-ceiling-washingtons-summer-thriller-terrifies-the-poor-and-elders.php

When a government becomes so beholden to special interests that it no longer can effectively serve its constituents, it has to create fictions of its usefulness to the people, terrifying them in the process.

First, there was in April the cheap spectacle over shutting down the government. Now with July going on to August, an even more tawdry piece of political theater, like a Hollywood summer blockbuster, counts down the minutes to raising the debt ceiling. In its absence, all are told to expect socio-economic Armageddon.

In truth, raising the debt ceiling is a routine procedure for the United States, which has relied heavily on borrowing for decades. As President Barack Obama noted in last Monday’s prime-time speech, “President Reagan did it 18 times. George W. Bush did it seven times.”

Yet in a Washington infested with every imaginable lie and phoniness, there is the particularly galling lie of the phony “patriotic Tea Party,” which is striking up an unconvincing pose as it demands spending cuts commensurate with accruing additional debt.

More at the link --