No Dealing On The Debt Ceiling, Part 3

For once, I actually have to grudgingly praise Tim Geithner for not being a fool.  He's saying on TV what needs to be said about it:  Congress will raise the debt ceiling.

Appearing on This Week, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said: "Well, I want to make it perfectly clear that Congress will raise the debt ceiling." When asked by Christiane Amanpour whether he was sure about that, Geithner responded: "Absolutely. And they recognize it, and they told the president that on Wednesday in the White House. And I sat there with them, and they said, we recognize we have to do this. And we're not going to play around with it. Because we know -- we know that the risk would be catastrophic."

If the debt ceiling is not raised, we go into a depression, period.

Also during his appearance on This Week, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner warned of what would happen if the debt ceiling were not raised. "What will happen is that we'd have to stop making payments to our seniors -- Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. We'd have to stop paying veterans' benefits," said Geithner. "We'd have to stop paying all the other payments on all the other things the government does. And then we would risk default on our interest payments. If we did that, we'd tip the U.S. economy and the world economy back into recession, depression."

Are Republicans really this stupid?  Somebody might want to clue in Rep. Paul Ryan.

Appearing on Face The Nation, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) said that Republicans would not agree to an increase in the debt ceiling without concessions on spending. "Nobody wants to play around with the country's credit rating. Nobody wants to see defaults happening - but we also think it's important to get a handle on future borrowing as we deal with raising the debt limit," said Ryan. He also added: "We shouldn't accept the premise that we have to rubber stamp a debt increase without any spending controls."

But that's exactly what Republicans have done in the past.  The difference is this particular game of chicken risks harming the real people in charge of the Republican party:  Wall Street.  The banksters like having near zero-cost loans.  It's one thing screwing with senior citizens, minorities, and the poor.  But the Republicans will not be allowed to pull the plug on the debt ceiling.  The second the market gets truly spooked that the GOP will let the country miss payments, it all comes crashing down, and the fat cats know it.

Do you really think the Republicans will seriously be allowed to threaten the Fed's gravy train for the banksters?  Do you really think the Republicans will be allowed to blow up the bond market for the next decade?  Not me.

Ryan and the Tea Party kids will get smacked down again soon enough.  The real people in charge aren't going to let these idiots wreck their Big Casino games.