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No budget deal now is fine with me. The deficit is less the problem than the symptom of the problem. We should be putting Americans back to work--paying more taxes and needing less help.
So the deficit can wait, but raising the debt ceiling must be dealt with now.
Will the Congress be able to do it? And if not, then what? The Armageddon that everybody but the House Republicans see on the horizon?
Or perhaps a bold presidential act: using the argument, advanced by some serious people, that the whole "ceiling" bit contravenes the 14th Amendment.
Whether the argument is ultimately compelling or not, it is plausible enough that in an emergency a president could act upon it. And I hope that Obama rather than allow a catastrophe--would do so.
Let the people who tried to use "must-pass" legislation for purposes of extortion dare to take him to court.
Then there's the matter of timing. If Obama asserted this authority before any consequences of Republican recklessness became visible, he'd be more vulnerable to his political opponents painting him as a usurper, a tyrant.
But if he waited until the American people could see catastrophe beginning to descend upon them, the people would see him as their rescuer.
Another benefit to waiting: then the American people could see clearly --writ large in the tumbling markets and economic deterioration---- the destructiveness of the spirit that now animates the right.
Perhaps sanity could then return to our democratic process. Poll finding: electorate inclined to replace their congressperson http://bitURL.net/bwjk
