OK, my chronology is a bit off, because the Jacobins really hadn’t made the scene yet at the time of the Tennis Court Oath, but the point is, today’s Tea Party crew is a lot like the Jacobins. Why? Because, despite all their talk of fiscal responsibility, what they really want to do is repudiate the U.S. debt. That’s what all this fuss about the debt ceiling is all about. In their guts, their feeling is, this isn’t our debt, so we aren’t going to pay it. We’ve paid enough, damn it! If President Obama wants to raise the ceiling, he can pay it out of his own damn pocket.
I have no idea what the endgame is going to be. President Obama, moaning about the dire possibility of cutting spending on the Weather Bureau, when he could, and should be making arguments that cutting spending now would damage the economy and increase the deficit, presents an unimpressive figure. Still, it is the Republicans who have created a good three-fourths of this mess, and more. They have no economic program whatsoever except sabotage. I suppose they would argue, if drunk enough, that being “responsible” would be the end of the Republican Party. The evangelical government-haters would never forgive them, and the party would split in half, and the damn Democrats would win every election. So I guess this is a good time to put party over country. Ever since the rise of Ollie North, Republicans have gloried in their “right” to break the rules. The coming smash, whatever form it finally assumes, won’t be pretty. Soon, we may be asking “How much is that in assignats?”
