Quite so. There is the old Woody Allen joke or repeated by him about - slight paraphrase- the guy who goes to the psychiatrist and says "Doc, my wife thinks she is a chicken and I can't take it anymore. Whereupon the psychiatrist says: "Why don't you get rid of her?" And he says: "I can't. I need the eggs." The debt-ceiling dance is a nutty little game and drama that both parties use to turbocharge some other goal they are trying to get passed. It is 100% DC created and driven- unlike other problems that are truly difficult. Gotta have those eggs. Meanwhile the dems and the hardcore Hannity types are declaring defeat for the republicans and that Mitch caved. Heh, that remains to be seen. In any deal that gets dragged out, time accrues to the benefit of one of the parties. Pocahontis thinks it accrues to the benefit of the dems. "Now we can get back to working on.....blah, blah, blah." But Mitch figures he can remove some of the poison pills from the process and just let time more time erode their bills more while watching the dem party do nude mud wrestling." One must admit that time has not strengthened their position. We know that the big bill will end out around 1.8 or 2.1 and the dems will declare victory because they got something. But it will NOT be the 6 trillion that Bernie and the Squad wanted. Those numbers are already long gone. Mitch also knows that inflation will rise harder and faster in the near term and that that works against the big lefty bill which allegedly will drive even uglier inflation. We all know how the American psyche works, Joe Sixpack does not follow whether programs are in the billions or the trillions- they all look alike in the dark. But, by gawd, he can spot a fifty cent increase in gas on the sign a mile away. The dems extracted some more time. As discussed, it remains to be seen whether that time will help them or hurt them. And not to beat this to death but, Mitch also knows that in the American pysche, particularly the American political psyche, the midterm elections begin BIGTIME after November so some little backroom deal that congressional reps were churning as a DC sport in August will be a life or death issue in their face with their survival on the line as we get toward the end of this extension. I don't bet against Pelosi as we are all advised to not do so for good reasons. Don't bet against Mitch either. He has already extracted more than a pound of flesh out of the progressive budget goal and time is on his side to either cap it in the range it is being tinkered with now or even less. Also, and I will just leave this under the heading of MORE TO COME, Joe Manchin said that any bill that does not include the Hyde Amendment is "DEAD ON ARRIVAL." Not sure he has said "if the bill is reduced by X amount, that issue goes away for me." Yeh, would not play well back home in W.V. Not at all. So just because no one is talking about that does not mean it will not blow up at some point. I think his plan has been that he is not going to fund the larger bill that includes all the health care programs so the issue will be moot. But if the dems try for a bill that includes everything but get the dollars down by just funding it for five years, rather than ten, then that issue gonna rise up again BIGTIME.
Oops, so much for this post. Unfortunate if you were in fact trying to build an argument with any value.
Its clear every day you have never been responsible for anything and probably never had kids either. Of course you were an alcoholic so maybe you had kids but can't remember. People who have experience with responsibility don't go, oh bored now! and they don't feel fear as mature adults. They do however feel concern and keep a weather eye on developments.
I don’t underestimate Mitch McConnell. He is usually a pretty good tactician but he got his lunch eaten by Schumer for pulling this stunt.
He is probably personable but he is a selfish guy too. He regards the quite horrible deaths of millions very trivially indeed, its just so boring for him now. Absolute stereotype of his generation and too old now to even be a good organ donor. These guys need to wake up and just pretend it's not all about them and 'team' bullshit. As was said by someone, weigh inside dining against the death of many strangers and inside dining wins hands down. The trolley problem is not a problem to those with no practiced responsibility.
He's an ex-grunt, like me, so I stick up for him. Years ago he was more balanced, but lately he's simply gone the way we all have in the country: less balance. Apologies for talking about you in the third-person, Cap'n.
No kids, never wanted any and no regrets on that decision. One of the few good decisions I made as a young man. We've just seen this act too many times for me to take the threat of government shutdown seriously. It's a game, an old one, and it bores me. All the feigned drama about it all bores me. If the powers that be are trying to frighten me they need to try harder.
Problem is all the government shutdowns that do occur fuck over thousands of regular government non-political workers by cutting off salary or contracts. the wealthy congress children fight and dare each other to shut down the government over stupidity while many average citizens suffer.... anyone who specifically causes the shutdown should have to have their funds and salaries cut drastically fro 4x the time the government is shut down..