It's been a little while since we checked in on the US political scene; I wonder what they're up to?
Oh. A debt ceiling fight. How quaint.
Let us remind ourselves of the stakes here. if the US defaults on its debt the global financial consequences will be somewhere between severe and apocalyptic. There is no-one in this fight who does not know this - though a few of the more eye-swivelling Republicans are pretending not to get it.
So, just like the last debt ceiling crisis - which ended less than 17 weeks ago, if you're counting - the debt limit has to be increased, or 2008 could end up looking like the last scene in Return of the Jedi. And what was the Republican plan? To reverse a pension cut to former US veterans they themselves forced through previously so that they can look like heroes when the benefits are reinstated.
Read that again. The Republican leadership is so unhappy with the idea of not destroying the world's economy that they need to cancel out their own fucking over of veterans to make them feel good about it.
Which is both cynical and pathetic, however you slice it. Apparently it doesn't matter though, since within a day the plans had been scrapped because too many of the rank-and-file Republicans claimed this was a shitty plan because it would make them look heartless when they voted for not helping vets and wrecking the world at the same time.
Every time I see the Telegraph insisting the Tories could learn a lot from the Republicans I start wondering if I'd really find a lobotomy as bad as people say.
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