As the nation careens toward default, Americans need to know exactly who must be held responsible

House Republicans show no signs of letting up in their effort to hold the American people hostage by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, increasing the likelihood by the day that this nation will default on paying its bills for the first time in U.S. history. In an effort to distract from their sole responsibility for causing this looming economic cataclysm, Republicans this week huddled together long into the early morning hours to concoct a draconian, face-saving budget bill they know has no chance of ever passing the Senate. As reported by Tami Luhby, writing for CNN, Republicans’ primary focus in this bill has been to attack the most vulnerable people in this country, those low-income citizens who—in fevered Republican imaginations—are undeserving: Americans who receive Medicaid and food stamp benefits.

But while imposing onerous work requirements on the nation’s poorest people has long been a staple of Republican budget-spinning, in reality it has nothing to do with the current debt ceiling debacle. That issue revolves entirely around expenses and debts already incurred by this nation, including, most notably, the debt wrought by Republicans’ only actual “achievement” during the Trump administration: their 2017 tax giveaway to the wealthiest Americans. Republicans know that as long as Joe Biden is president, they cannot achieve their goals of hollowing out the federal government by using the normal legislative process, so they have seized on their power to raise the debt ceiling limit as leverage to try to impose their ideologically driven policies on the rest of the country. 

Meanwhile, as the Republican-dominated House continues to waste time, most Americans are simply getting on with their lives, many blissfully unaware of what the Republican party has in store for them in just a month or two. That is mostly because despite the red-flashing alarms just now starting to go off in the financial press, the nation’s financial markets have not yet reflected what is almost dead certain to occur. Over and over, we are reminded that this has all happened before, that a deal will suddenly, miraculously be reached at the eleventh hour, sparing the country from economic calamity. It’s not at all clear, however, that the financial industry truly appreciates the true pathology of the Republican party and its capacity for nihilism and self-delusion.

That moment of clarity will come, however, and now it appears it will come sooner rather than later.

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