This is About Republicans Delivering to Their Base, Even at the Expense of the Nation

Now is a good time for the president and congress to remind the country that $11 trillion of the nation's debt came from Reagan, George Bush, and George W. Bush. That accounts for roughly 75% of the federal debt.

This is the same federal debt Republicans are now threatening to default on by not wanting to raise the debt ceiling. Somehow, over the last 30 years, they've grown repulsed at running up debt.  This is somewhat of a silly move for anyone that claims to care about the nation's debt problem.

Even if we don't raise the debt ceiling, we will still accumulate debt. Actually, we will accumulate it much quicker than we would had we just raised it because not raising the debt limit will force America to default on its bills. Default will cause us to pay much higher interests rates on those bills, adding hundreds of billions to the debt. Not to mention, it will also result in the United States not being allowed to borrow any more money. Like the Republican Treasury Secretary said Sunday, it will be "catastrophic" for America if we don't raise the debt limit.

Someone who might suggest they are concerned about the federal debt surely knows the quickest way to alleviate it is to cut spending, increase revenue by raising taxes and begin paying down the debt. That scenario is a guaranteed solvent to accomplishing debt reduction.  If you don't want to, oh I don't know, raise taxes, then you better be  prepared to cut trillions from the budget over a number of years to even begin to start paying down the debt.  Hence why Speaker Boehner has backed away from a $4 trillion reduction plan because it included new revenue from raising taxes on people who own corporate jets.  He now wants the debt reduction side to be roughly $2 trillion and come solely from spending cuts.

But that's not what any of this is about.  It's not that Republicans have an aversion to accumulating debt or spending tax money.  They have no track record of ever shrinking the federal debt or cutting the budget.  What this is about is Republicans know they can't cave on this.  They can't give in to the president and make him appear as a winner because their base will annihilate them in 2012.

It's not that the GOP wants to reduce the debt.  They don't.  And neither does their base.  They just want to pass all the blame off on President Obama, hope people don't realize $11 trillion of the debt came from them, and use it as leverage to ensure he's a one-term president.  In order to do that, to keep their base happy and show up next year, the GOP has to stand firm on the debt ceiling and not let Obama do what he did last Dec./Jan. when he came out victorious on the extension of the Bush tax cuts and ending DADT.

Yet, even that analysis neglects one important factor.  For over two years now, Republicans and their pundits have been calling the president a socialist, an enemy, a foreign born anti-colonialist with Marxist tendencies; a racist that hates white people who wants to lock Christians and Republicans up in concentration camps.  As repulsive and untrue as all that is, it's come back around to bite them. How do you negotiate with someone like what they have told their base about Obama?  You don't.  You can't.  If you do, the people you have been telling all that to will think you are crazy for even talking to him.  So you have to do what you have to do.  Hold out and hope he gets the blame, fails and everyone calls you a Freedom Fighter and you sweep the nation next year.

That's what this is.  Republicans can't let their base down again.  You can't yell fire in a movie theater and then expect to watch the movie in solitary.  But that's exactly what Republicans are trying to do.