We Suck

The deal shaping up in Congress is really shattering in its political expediency over governance. Seems like pretty much everyone in Congress except the 1st Year Republican House members knows the Debt Ceiling needs to be raised and that it isn't really something to play chicken with. However, the leadership in the house seems unable to educate those representatives and provide enough information for those reps and their constituents enough to get them to vote to do it.

Instead it sounds like they are going to vote to authorize the President to raise the debt ceiling on his own - that there's a difference to this and voting to raise it themselves is something that is only political and not at all procedural. So they'll vote to cede the authority, knowing full well what the result will be - and then they'll vote to admonish the President for doing it.

We know we have to do it...
We can't bring ourselves to do what we know we have to do...
We'll make it so you can do what we can't bring ourselves to do that we know we have to do...
Then we'll scold you for doing what we made it possible for you to do that we were unable to bring ourselves to do that we knew we had to do.

We suck.

The saddest part is that they will then all run on how they opposed raising the debt ceiling. Red meat to chum the waters in Tea Party districts.

Here's a novel idea: if you really think we shouldn't raise the debt ceiling, don't vote for it. Don't vote for any circumstance that allows it. Stand by your damn convictions. Don't look one way and make the thing possible and then turn the other way and say you didn't want it to happen. That's not governing, that's advertising.

I lied. The saddest part won't be that they'll run on it. The saddest part is that many, many voters won't notice that particular campaign stance as being totally and completely empty.

Voting to give the President extraordinary authority to do something you don't want done that you know for a fact he will do is exactly the same as voting for it yourself. Geez! You're a US Congressman, grow a pair.