{"id":5429,"date":"2011-07-21T00:30:04","date_gmt":"2011-07-21T07:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5429"},"modified":"2011-07-21T00:30:04","modified_gmt":"2011-07-21T07:30:04","slug":"republicans-continue-to-flirt-with-debt-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/21\/republicans-continue-to-flirt-with-debt-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans Continue to Flirt with Debt Disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

The problem with Republicans pushing the envelope in their blackmail may come early.  The economy is already hurting from Republican shenanigans, due to falling consumer confidence.  Extremist Republicans realize that failure to raise the debt ceiling would be a catastrophe.  But they embraced even more extremist wing nuts, and they are wagging the elephants tail.  Meanwhile, Obama\u2019s posturing is driving the left to distraction.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"Goldman-screw\"Washington is struggling to reach a deal on the debt ceiling<\/a>, and American consumer confidence is slipping. Do these facts have anything to do with each other?<\/p>\n

Andrew Tilton, an economist at Goldman Sachs, thinks so. In a note published Tuesday, Tilton wrote that a recent drop in the Reuters\/University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index — a closely watched consumer confidence report — could be related to the ongoing debt ceiling gridlock.<\/p>\n

The Michigan index fell in July from 71.5 points to 63.8 points — a two-year low,<\/a> Reuters noted. The drop took many by surprise — the index was expected to rise slightly in July, according to economists polled by Bloomberg News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nor is Michigan the only polling body to find waning consumer confidence this summer\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Huffington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n

Banksters are panicking, because US bonds could be degraded at any time.<\/font><\/p>\n

Rachel Maddow considers the possibilities with E.J. Dionne.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

No wonder Goldman Sachs is jerking the GOP leash.<\/font><\/p>\n

Of course, Obama knew it was safe to support the gang of six proposal. It contains revenue enhancements. Lawrence O’Donnell explains and explores with David Frum.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Had Republicans taken the grand deal, as Frum suggested, Obama would have faced a major political crisis, but Republicans are predictable for intransigence.<\/font><\/p>\n

Obama is still playing the "adult in the room" role. Obama talks about cutting the big three, but knows he will never have to do it.  I am still convinced that there will be no deals that cut benefits.  The left\u2019s big concern here is not Obama.  It is whether Republicans can back off from insaniTEA.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The problem with Republicans pushing the envelope in their blackmail may come early.  The economy is already hurting from Republican shenanigans, due to falling consumer confidence.  Extremist Republicans realize that failure to raise the debt ceiling would be a catastrophe.  But they embraced even more extremist wing nuts, and they are wagging the elephants tail.  […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}