Held hostage by Hastert: a minority of one chamber threatens the whole country
by David Atkins
In a move that will surprise absolutely no one, Republicans are making serious threats to default on spending they already racked up in order to force devastating cuts onto a nation that resoundingly rejected their message of austerity for the middle class.
With the Obama Administration openly refusing the 14th Amendment and platinum coin choices, it becomes a game of chicken. It’s a game the Obama Administration has shown itself unwilling to play. Given the Administration’s history, it’s probable that it will seek a Grand Bargain on spending cuts despite its protestations to the contrary.
But more interesting that second-guessing that Administration’s true intentions is taking stock of the perversity of the situation. It’s not just that Republicans are threatening to take the entire nation off an economic cliff if they don’t get their way. It’s not just that the gerrymandered House is refusing to play ball with the White House and the Senate. Nor is it just that a party that dramatically lost a big election is refusing to abide by the results of that election.
It’s that a minority of a single chamber of the government is holding the country hostage. If John Boehner brings to the floor raising the debt ceiling while simply funding most of the programs cut by the sequester, a majority of House would vote for it: nearly all the Democrats, and enough Republicans either sane or more threatened from the left than from the right. But having violated the Hastert rule over the fiscal cliff, it would be nearly political suicide to do it again on the sequester where the rabid right wing feels it holds all the cards.
So what is threatening to send the country toppling into default is purely John Boehner’s ambitions to remain the Speaker, and an arcane “rule” that makes an already sclerotic government completely inoperable. A slim majority just of the House Republican caucus–a minority in the House overall–is holding the entire country hostage not through the regular Constitutional checks and balances, but through yet another abuse of yet another arcane voluntary rule that almost no one who isn’t a political obsessive knows about.
The need to enact major reforms to the American legislative system has never been more clear.
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