The Coming Debt Ceiling Hostage Negotiation Meltdown Spectacular (Now With Abortions!)

by evanmcmurry

Hey, remember how the deficit is shrinking at an unexpectedly rapid rate, thus pushing any debt crisis, even imaginary ones, far into the future? Ya don’t? You must be a House Republican:

Even though the deficit is plunging at an extraordinarily fast rate, and saving the Republic from the supposed imminent threat of the debt crisis was the entire rationale for using the novel and dangerous tactic of holding the debt ceiling hostage, absolutely nobody within the House Republican caucus is even considering just lifting the debt ceiling. Everybody agrees they must demand a new hostage.

Relevant hostages, right?

The proposed demands change from tax reform to spending cuts to delaying Obamacare to the Keystone pipeline to the Paul Ryan budget to banning certain types of abortion.

I can’t wait to hear the explanation of how abortions are causing the deficit problem we don’t have.

As Chait goes on to point out, the real enemy of this stunt is the business community, which has put the kabosh on the hostage strategy before, and will again if need be. In the meantime, the House will do nothing but further tarnish the GOP brand at a time when the party is desperately trying to reinvent itself as not insane. Oh, and nothing will be done for the un- and underemployed, but you already knew that.