Will Bunch - Debt limit: The nihilism is the point

[Nevilledog]

https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/debt-ceiling-gop-biden-trump-saudi-arabia-20230523.html


The classic vocal group The Ink Spots had a Top Five hit in 1941 with a song titled, “I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire.” I’m guessing that The Ink Spots wouldn’t have lasted more than a day in the 2020s’ discordant ensemble of political arsonists known as the Republican Party.

Indeed, there’s already been a potential forest fire of kindling created by all the dead-tree newspaper articles speculating what the GOP really wants in its aggrieved negotiations with President Joe Biden and his team over the once-routine and dull political act of raising the nation’s debt limit, necessitated by the non-stop borrowing that keeps the lights on for the federal government. But in reality, you can explain it with just seven words.

They want to burn it all down.

I do mean this in the quite literal sense, as one of the central demands of the narrow-majority House Republicans led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy is gutting the climate-change provisions in 2022′s Biden-backed Inflation Reduction Act, trashing hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives for things like electric vehicles and solar panels, and increasing the odds that heat-fueled wildfires will surround places like McCarthy’s dusty hometown of Bakersfield.

But I mainly mean it in the allegoric sense that too many members of McCarthy’s 222-member GOP caucus would rather watch the American Experiment go up in flames — and smile with a devilish grin like “Disaster Girl” in the infamous meme — than follow the example of their alleged hero Ronald Reagan, who raised the debt limit 18 times (because Reagan created a boatload of debt!) and pass this pro forma yet essential legislation and move on.

*snip*

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Rs can't win enough votes to block Biden's first 2 years, so resort to anti-democratic means

Hold the economy hostage to thwart the wishes of the majority of Americans.

[flying_wahini]

2. They think they want anarchy. They really just want control and pseudo respect for trying

To screw the libs.
Problem is that ALL Americans will suffer. We are all in the same boat.

What grieves me is all the Republicans who are going along and KNOW DAMN WELL
they shouldn’t do it. Just to be one of the guys.

[durablend]

3. Oh no, they do want anarchy

"Screw you and your leftist laws that don't apply to us!"

[lame54]

4. The Bannon plan