UK: The Republicans are to blame for US debt crisis

PJ: Even the conservative leaning Economist doesn't cut the GOP any slack on the current debt crisis.

The Economist
Lexington

Whom to blame

Jul 29th 2011, 23:09 by Lexington

I WAS sorry to see Gary Johnson, the agreeably modest former governor of New Mexico, and Republican presidential candidate, repeating one of the absurder Republican talking points. He says:

Having served as a Republican governor in a Democrat state with a Democrat legislature, I understand the challenge of divided government. I would have voted against the House-passed debt limit bill; it simply does not cut enough spending. But at least the Republican House came up with something and voted on it.

The President and the Senate, on the other hand, have done nothing except hold news conferences and lay blame on everyone from the Tea Party to George W. Bush. 'We don't know what we want, but this isn't it' is not the approach to leadership the American people want and deserve. The federal budget can be balanced, and it can be balanced now, if only our elected leaders in Washington would actually show some courage and commitment to putting our financial house in order.

Er, hang on. The "something" the Republican House has come up with is a non-solution (since the Senate cannot buy it) to a problem entirely of the Republicans' own making. The reason for this crisis is that instead of just raising the debt ceiling in the customary way so that the government can pay the bills Congress has already run up, the Republicans decided to point a pistol at the American economy and threaten to pull the trigger if they did not get the spending cuts they wanted.

Sure, America needs to tackle its burgeoning entitlement programmes. But not now, when cutting spending will make an insipid recovery worse, and more especially not like this, hijacking a routine procedure and using it to bring the country to the edge of downgrading or default. At least the Republicans have done something? Gimme a break.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2011/07/debt-ceiling-1