We’re now five days into the fallout of the post-default scare, our pockets $24 billion lighter, with nothing to show for the stunt except for the post traumatic stress left on the economy and record lows in congressional approval.
So what was it? Who is to blame for all of it? Does it matter? Where are we now?
We now know the default scare was the result of Republicans desperate to derail Obamacare, led by ambitious party radicals like Ted Cruz who, in a last resort to get the bill repealed, refused to pass a federal budget. In short, Republicans orchestrated the crisis. The move was unprecedented, but when Obama didn’t flinch, it ultimately backfired, opening deep divisions within an already weakened GOP party and sinking approval ratings for Speaker of the House John Boehner and anyone connected to the play.
Besides the startling revelation that our government was more dysfunctional than we gave them credit for, the crisis underscored two things.
One, Republicans are willing to hold the nation’s economy hostage to keep poor people from getting health care.
Two, they’re apparently so ideologically intractable, they came within a day of committing suicide to do it.
Tea Party political advocacy groups Heritage Action for America and FreedomWorks, both holding formidable sway within the GOP, campaigned heavily to defund Obamacare.
They were incensed when the party threw in the towel to raise the debt ceiling. In a recent CNN poll, a majority of Americans say Republicans controlling the house is bad for America, and data indicates the Tea Party influence may be flagging.
After two near calamities, the lingering shame of these missteps threaten to reach senate and congressional voting districts, and with sobering confirmation these crises have adversely impacted a global economy. GOP leaders are loathe to return to brinksmanship as a negotiating tactic.
Perhaps the biggest problem facing Republican leadership now is the fact that they have no real leadership. The Washington Post likened them to a “collection of tribes.” A more moderate conservative approach might have read the signs better to hold off on risking such heavy losses.
For example, by many estimates, the start of Obamacare has been deemed a failure. The website for the Affordable Care Act has been hampered with so many glitches that according to NBC, only one in five people have been able to log in without encountering a site-related error.
What’s more, various states, conspicuously those under Republican control, are still reluctant to sign on to using federally funded health care. NYTimes readers and viewers of Rachel Maddow might remember the piece exposing the conservative billionaires, the Koch brothers, for throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at manufacturing the image that more people want to kill Obamacare.
Koch-funded lobby arms, like the Americans for Prosperity movement, buses in green t-shirt laden droves of leaderless Tea Partiers to state capitals and town halls throughout the country where they decry Obamacare for the price of a Subway sandwich. The impact hasn’t been negligible.
Attacking Obamacare at weak links like these, or the argument that it might not be fiscally sustainable may have proven a more effective long game for the beleaguered Republican party, but with that option now a memory, they’re left trying to find cohesion where it might not exist.
But the fact that the GOP might be a rudderless blimp also appears unhelpful if either side stands a chance at finding compromise before the next shutdown deadline in January. Given where we stand, Democrats appear too exasperated to revel. Although his approval rating still flies below 50%, Obama came away from the scare unscathed, but America’s festering problems still persist.
Dagong, a leading global Chinese credit rating agency, recently downgraded America’s credit rating. And another, Fitch, threatened similar action leading up to the crisis. The Economist went as far as saying we’re now worse off than Europe, noting the IMF characterized US spending as unsustainable proportionate to our low taxing, and put our current trajectory on a path to bankruptcy.
For all of the headaches, it appears at least our options have now been simplified: either Republicans agree to raise taxes, or lawmakers collectively agree to reduce spending enough to improve the GDP. But those seem Herculean feats in comparison to the contentious short-term federal budget just ahead. With both sides so willing to dig in on core party principles, the January deadline suddenly looks a lot closer than it did a few days ago.
