A House full of jokers

House Republicans are such immature, game-playing jokers.

Yesterday the House voted to not increase the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. According to The Hill, the vote was 318-97, with 82 Democrats joining Republicans in rejecting legislation that would have authorized additional borrowing by the federal government.

I wrote before that if the ceiling – the cap set by Congress on the amount of debt the federal government can legally borrow – isn’t raised and we default on our loans, interest rates could soar, another financial crisis could be sparked and hundreds of thousands of businesses could be crippled. No one knows for sure what’ll happen because it’s never happened before. In fact, the debt ceiling has been raised 74 times since March of 1962. (Ten of those times have occurred since 2001.)

I also wrote that politicians have already committed to incurring the obligations that require them to raise the debt ceiling. Former Congressional Office Director Rudolph Penner said, “Much of the political rhetoric is misleading because the money has already been committed.”

Apparently House Republicans scheduled the vote to show Senate Democrats and the POTUS that Congress won't be increasing the debt limit without major spending cuts. Yesterday's charade doesn't mean they won't finally vote to do the right thing.

The unjustified wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost over $1.2 trillion since 2001. I wonder how much spending could be cut if we brought the troops home.

Hey, Republicans! Keep ignoring economists who warn against playing politics with the debt ceiling! Now that you’ve got your billions worth of tax cuts for the rich, start posturing as fiscal conservatives! Keep pissing on the little people who have no voice and don’t always pay attention! Keep fiddling while Rome burns!

The chickens will come home to roost eventually no matter what.