Debt Ceiling Default Is a ‘Chosen Crisis’ Created by the Radical Tea Partyists

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Rachel Maddow on MSNBC Wednesday night:

MADDOW: It’s worth remembering this is a crisis created by Congress. Option A for dealing with raising the debt ceiling has always been, hey, let’s raise the debt ceiling. Congress did it seven times under George W. Bush. I said five times the other night, forgive me, it was seven. Eighteen times under Ronald Reagan, 17 times since the 1960s, and 130 Republicans in Congress right now voted happily throughout the George W. Bush era to raise the debt ceiling without so much as a peep. This time however for some reason, no. This year they have decided for political reasons that they are just not going to do it.

That’s the whole crisis here. That’s the origin of the crisis, that’s where it comes from, and Option A for solving this crisis has always been let’s not choose to have this crisis. This is a chosen crisis. Let’s choose not to have it. That has always been Option A.

Rough transcript from MSNBC:

>> today at 5:00, president obama summoned the top two republicans in the house, the house republican leadership team, he summoned them to the white house, presumably to freak out about 24 hours earlier, this has been the president’s message to the nation and house republicans in particular.

>> we’re in the 11th hour, and we don’t have a lot more time left. we don’t have anymore time to posture. it’s time to get down to the business of actually solving this problem.

>> that was yesterday. the 11th hour, not a lot of time left. today, no announcement from the president in the pressroom like you saw there, no congenial information and discussion of our options and what’s before us. today, just literally a tweet from the white house press secretary announcing this meeting. the tweet was update, the president will meet with speaker boehner and majority leader today at 5:00 p.m. as in you guys get over here now. one of the things president obama has been pointing out lately is the deadline that’s upon us to raise the nation’s debt ceiling is not really august 2.

he has been trying to say that there’s no reason to expect that the markets, the bond markets, stock market, etc., no reason to expect that they will wait until we actually default, until august 2, before reacting adversely. as we get closer and closer to the default date, just being too close to it without a resolution may, in fact, knock the economy off a cliff. at this point it could happen any moment. moody’s warned last week the u.s. aaa credit score, which we had enjoyed for 94 years, our aaa credit score is in danger of being downgraded not on august 2 when we start defaulting, not on august 3, the day after, but they said by the middle of july. because we are flirting with the possibility of default now on purpose. they threatened by the middle of july.

it is now july 20th. today moody’s had yet another terrifying warning, this time to five states, virginia, maryland, new mexico, tennessee, and south carolina, they said “should the u.s. government’s rating be downgraded to aa status or lower, these five state’s ratings would likely be downgraded as well. in other words, moody’s have identified these five states as having a state economy entwined enough with the federal economy that if and when the u.s. gets our bond rating destroyed by something that’s going on in congress, something that’s never happened before in the modern history in the country, these states will go down as well. tweet, tweet, hey, guys, get over here, this needs to be done now. it’s worth remembering this is a crisis created by congress. option a for dealing with raising the debt ceiling has always been hey, let’s raise the debt ceiling.

congress did it seven times under george w. bush. i said five times the other night, forgive me, it was seven. 18 times under ronald reagan, 17 times since the 1960s, and 130 republicans in congress right now voted happily throughout the george w. bush era to raise the debt ceiling without so much as a peep. this time however for some reason, no. this year they have decided for political reasons that they are just not going to do it. that’s the whole crisis here. that’s the origin of the crisis, that’s where it comes from, and option a for solving this crisis has always been let’s not choose to have this crisis. this is a chosen crisis. let’s choose not to have it. that has always been option a.

barring the political impossibility of that this year, option b. option b, a giant all encompassing long-term debt reduction proposal to handle america’s fiscal concerns for decades to come. the president has spoken frequently of his desire to do something like this, if not his understanding it might happen through this particular congress. that’s what gave rise to the gang of six happy talk that we got out of the beltway yesterday, a bipartisan group of senators came up with a very, very, very conservative proposal to cut taxes on the rich, cut taxes on corporations, stick it to social security and medicare and call it macaroni, but it’s bipartisan. so the beltway loves it. conservative democrats and conservative republicans agree that this is a great way forward. and god bless them, the senate is conservative enough they probably could get a super majority for it if it came up.

two problems about this gang of six thing. the first rainbow/sunshine problem is logistical. based on the gigantic slope of the legislation, the people in charge say regardless of the substance of the proposal, it’s too big. there is no time to get something this big done before the august 2 deadline. it literally cannot be passed through the senate in time even if everybody likes it. the other rainbow/sunshine problem here is the president and the senate agreeing on this or anything doesn’t get you further towards raising the debt ceiling, it’s not just the president and the senate, it’s crazy town down the hallway too, it’s john boehner’s republican house, that likes the idea of the nation defaulting, that thinks the explosion of the economy might be pretty or at least warm for a second.

they are not looking for a good deal or achieve particular policy objectives, regardless of what they get, they are not going to vote to raise the debt ceiling. the republicans who are running for president from the house of representatives, for example, are not saying don’t raise the debt ceiling unless, don’t raise the debt ceiling until, they are saying don’t raise the debt ceiling at all. let’s see what happens. this is how republican congresswoman michele bachmann’s first presidential campaign ad ended.

>> i will not vote to increase the debt ceiling. i’m michele bachmann, and i approve this message.

>> i will not — that was how the first ad for michele bachmann’s campaign ended. this, today, is how her second presidential campaign ad starts.

>> i will not vote to increase the debt ceiling.

>> i will not — again, it’s not — i will not unless or i will not until. it’s just i will not. just the answer is no. it’s like — you know what it’s like? like that moment in the rupert murdoch testimony in the british parliament yesterday. we played this on the show. there’s no more perfect representation from the republican position than this clip from the murdoch testimony. watch.

>> when were you informed about the payments made to gordon taylor and max clifford?

>> nope.

>> no? when were — was that a yes or no — it was not a yes or no. no. the answer is no. doesn’t matter what the question is. they don’t want to do it. so the only way out of this, well, there may be two ways out of this. one, if the president can circumvent congress, the president could theoretically break the law that says it’s congress that has to raise the debt ceiling by instead raising it himself by using powers out of the constitution which says our debt has to be honored.

that’s one of the things in politics that may be technically feasible, not that he wouldn’t do it to save the country. presidents have done things more extreme, but the idea he would be made to do it or consider it, it is almost impossible to imagine. putting that aside, is there anything short of something that dramatic that could be done here? yes. at least used to be something. mitch mcconnell, the top republican in the senate proposed last week — remember this? proposed last week — he proposed republican surrender, a surrender they thought would make them look great politically.

mitch mcconnell came up with a complicated by which congress would vote to raise the debt ceiling, but only a third of congress would have to vote in favor of doing it, so it could just be the democrats who did it. it was a complicated thing involving the republicans saying they didn’t want to do it, congress not overriding his veto. it was kind of a mess, but the idea the debt ceiling would be raised, but it would be raised by the president and democratic members of congress alone. that was the republican surrend surrender in this fight and ever since they introduced the prospect about a week ago, everybody has been assuming this, frankly, is the escape hatch, if republicans and democrats can agree on nothing, if republicans and democrats cannot even agree we should take mutual action to not default, then at least republicans and democrats can agree that democrats could keep us from defaulting.

but now, days into this, days into this, days closer to this apocalyptic deadline, congress has decided they can no longer even meet the soft bigotry of these expectations. 80 republicans have signed on to a letter saying no, we do not even want the escape hatch. we do not even want the model that has the democrats do it for us because we abdicate. we don’t want this to come up in the house. do not let it come to the floor for a vote.

maybe republicans want to force president obama into taking presidential actions so they can turn it into a dramatic plan to impeach him. maybe they want to see how pretty it is when it explodes. maybe they are bluffing and as the beltway common wisdom had it today, maybe they’ll come to their senses and get scared about the prospects of what they are doing to the american economy and whole country and come around. even if you believe that ultimately republicans in congress are planning on doing the responsible thing, even if you believe that, next week in all likelihood would be too late. where is the new escape hatch? joining us now, e.j. dionne, e.j., it’s good to see you again, thanks for being here.

>> good to be with you.

>> you are more experienced with washington, i have to move my flag pole, hold on. more experienced with washington and by constitution i think you are a sunnier person than i am, e.j. do you see a way out of this mess i do not see?

>> i am a glass one-tenth full person. oh, things can be okay. i have rarely been this depressed, i think, and i’ve been here awhile about the way washington is working. this is a totally politician-induced crisis. we didn’t have enough crises, so we had to induce one out of cloth, the problem is, you cannot see how to get 218 votes in the house of representatives for anything because of this rejectionist caucus you mentioned, otherwise known as the tea party caucus, and both speaker boehnor and the majority leader, eric cantor, are kind of playing to them. they don’t want to sort of annoy them. at some point, i think they are going to have to say we will not let the country get wrecked by this. i agree with the remarks at the beginning. we could get downgraded at any moment. we are courting real trouble, and if only we would pay — if all it was we’d pay more interest, that’s crazy. more interest means less of everything. we would prefer to pay for interest, kids go to college, it’s crazy.

>> after weeks of saying that he would not support a short-term extension of the debt ceiling, today president obama came out and said he would, he would support a short-term deal as long as there were plans in place to move forward to a bigger bargain after the bridge. do you see that as a potential pivot here, as an important point towards moving forward?

>> i think people in the white house are really legitimately scared. they are not paralyzed, just looking at the same stuff we are. yes, he drew a line in the sand, now he may cross it, but it was some sense a negotiating posture. i think when boehnor and cantor saw the president today, what i was told they were going to tell him we may be able to do a billion dollars in a few months so we keep this game going for awhile. i guess that would be better than defaulting, but it’s still — it’s still an enormous wasted effort. john kennedy said he who seeks power by riding the back of the tiger usually ends up inside. and i think that’s where boehnor and cantor are. they rode the tea party, and now the tea party is threatening to devour the republican party.

>> your column published tonight on “the washington post” website the crisis already is forcibly cleaving the republican leadership from the tea party. you say that ayn rand in her writings may help explain how that is happening. can you explain that?

>> in her first most popular book, “the fountainhead,” the guy who doesn’t get what he wants blows up a building. there are ayn rand followers in the majority that would rather blow things up than make any concessions at all. i think quietly there are moderate conservative republicans, not any moderate republicans anymore, they are saying this is taking us all too far. they are looking at the polls, not helping republicans in the polls, but they want to govern and are looking at this and saying we can’t govern this way, and i’m hoping they are thinking about saying to these other folks we can’t walk the rest of the way with you.

>> e.j. dionne from “the washington post” and brookings, i appreciate it.

>> thank you.