Talks Break Down (Again!)

And so it goes again. Speaker Boehner has broken off the debt ceiling negotiations with President Obama, explaining the decision in a letter that went out to the GOP caucus.

The letter is, frankly, utter bullshit that wouldn't play with anyone. Except, perhaps, the current GOP caucus. He talks about how the Republican Cut, Cap, and Balance plan passed the House "with bipartisan support", despite having passed by 234 to 190. I was unaware that the support of all of five Democrats qualified as bipartisan, to be honest.

Really, though, that's a small issue by comparison to some of the other things in the letter. Things like this:

... it became evident that the White House is simply not serious about ending the spending binge that is destroying jobs and endangering our children's future. 

Considering that last I checked, there was talk of making changes to Social Security and Medicare, I don't know about that. Boehner does have a better view of those talks than I do, of course, so perhaps those claims never were serious. If that was the case, I say that's a very good thing!

You see, I honestly don't think that now is the best time to cut government spending. Someone needs to be putting money into the economy, and given that we're still in a slump after all this time, I'm pretty damn sure that the private sector isn't really doing that. If the government has to be the one to put money into the economy and create jobs, I think that would far more effectively fix the problems we're facing right now - because the amount of government spending is simply not a "right now" problem amidst the current economic situation.

Oh, and one more historical note, courtesy of Paul Krugman: blaming the Democrats for the current spending issue is really kind of shortsighted considering that I don't think the Democrats have ever been the problem here. Funnily enough, there are actual numbers that show that it wasn't Reagan or Bush (either one) who presided over the only time in recent memory where we were actually paying off the debt.

In fact, I'm pretty sure it was the current crop of Republican congressional leaders who continually kept authorizing the steady growth of public debt when those Republican presidents were in office. I wonder (where "wonder" means "already know it's for purely political gain") why they're so damn concerned about that issue now.

In short? Debt ceiling negotiations have broken down again. Mr. Speaker, you can pretend all you like that it has nothing to do with your party's policies. But if you want to actually govern this nation, I would vastly prefer that you stop pretending and start dealing with reality.