There's Nothing "Conservative" About Reneging On the Debt [View all]

[CousinIT]

https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/theres-nothing-conservative-about?r=9qkyj

House Republicans, whose savvy and gravitas have been on vivid display these last few weeks, now have a Grand Strategy for refusing to raise the debt limit and shutting down the federal government.

“Brinksmanship” seems like a euphemism for this fiscal game of chicken.

A hypothetical proposal that protects Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits and the military would still leave out huge swaths of critical federal expenditures on things such as Medicaid, food safety inspections, border control and air traffic control, to name just a handful of thousands of programs. Democrats are also likely to accuse Republicans of prioritizing payments to U.S. bondholders — which include Chinese banks — over American citizens.

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In other words, the GOP’s Rube Goldberg plan is a non-starter. So what happens when the newly puissant Freedom Caucus takes the economy hostage, and the country teeters toward an actual default?

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To be clear: Refusing to raise the debt limit, or even coming close to default, would be catastrophic. . . .