Ron Paul and Michelle Bachmann have been very vocal on their stance to NOT increase the debt limit, regardless of any deals or cuts.
Obviously the press is paying attention to them because they’re both running for president.
Paul has said he will vote against the debt limit increase, even if it means bad things for the US economy. He recently wrote, “defaulting on a portion of the debt may not be without costs, but it is better than handing the government yet another credit card.”
So how will these two spin things after Aug 2, if the debt limit isn’t raised, and things come crashing down? They have been two of the most vocal opponents of raising the debt ceiling, and both have plenty of comments on record of not supporting it…so if the economy tanks, interest rates jump, unemployment jumps, our credit rating drops, etc., how will they spin that to their advantage? Will their candidacies be toast? It seems to me that coming out this strong on such a unstable and unpredictable issue so early could be political suicide for a presidential candidate.
I know there are a lot of “ifs” in this, but I’m just curious to hear how they might spin their way out of this should the worst possible thing happens after Aug 2 comes and goes and the debt limit isn’t increased. Seems to me the Pub candidates who are keeping their cards close to their chests will be able to use any outcome more to their advantage.
That’s easy: if anything bad happens, it’s Obama’s fault. I think that’s their longer term plan too: do their best to wreck the economy, and blame Obama for it in the 2012 election.
Well obviously that’s what any Republican candidate will do. But I just find it curious that these two are offering up so much potential ammunition for their opponents in the process. The other candidates have said very little about this whole debt limit issue, and for good reason. It really serves no benefit to their campaigns to start shooting their mouths off one way or the other. That’s why I’m so curious about how Paul and Bachmann will do damage control if their very-vocal stance on this issue proves to be immensely bad for the US and global economies.
Should the worst happen, they’ll take a beating from their Republican opponents in the primary season, and should they survive the primaries, they’ll take even a bigger beating from Obama.
So is this just a really big gamble on their part, hoping against hope that the limit gets raised OR that if it doesn’t get raised, their predictions were right?
Simple, just pick one of the rhetorical escape hatches that are have been jammed with overuse in the past couple of years:
1: The incipient crisis isn’t as scary as it looks
2: The incipient crisis is politically contrived to boost Obama/Boehner/Cantor’s political fortunes
3: The actual crisis wasn’t really that bad
4: History will judge that the actual crisis would have been worse if I hadn’t done what I did.
Well IF it gets raised, that’s probably what they’d say. But what I’m asking is how will they spin this IF it doesn’t get raised and the economy does crash. Then they will be on the record for squarely being on the wrong side of this issue.
In that case, they’ll say that it was only that bad because it became a political issue, and that if Obama had just quietly gone along with their plan to not raise it, it wouldn’t have been so bad.
That, or they fought their hardest to raise it, but the Democratic opposition to raising it was too strong, and the Democrats managed to prevent it from being raised to collapse the economy.
Yes, either spin is absurd, but really, they’re not any more absurd than some of the other lies that their constituents have bought.
I think Paul is wrong but I at least credit him with being aware of what he’s doing. If the economy crashes, he’ll probably say it was the result of decades of poor government decisions. He’ll say we shouldn’t have put ourselves into this situation.
Bachmann, on the other hand, is clueless. I don’t think she understands what’s going on.
At least Paul is being consistent with the positions he has taken over the course of his political career. And he isn’t denying there could be economic difficulties as a result. I think he would say it was a necessary evil in order to get the government’s financial house in order.
OTOH, Bachmann is flat out denying anything would happen at all. This is because she is an idiot. She would simply say it was an evul-mooslum-soshalist-librul trick to enslave white Christian patriotic Americans.
I saw Paul interviewed last night. He is still wedded to a concept of America that only exists in his mind.
Bachmann can not get away from the tea baggers. They are her peeps. If she offends them, her sliver of backing will evaporate. So she will stay on point.
The Tea Party nutsos would love nothing more than default, and possible chaos in the marketplace. When chaos reigns, leaders are chosen based on rhetoric, and without regard for sanity. It’s how the horrors of the past were visited upon the planet, and I fully expect that to continue until the planet goes boom.
I’d respect Paul a lot more (even if I still thought he was wrong) if it wasn’t for his position on abortions. He has said they should be illegal.
A consistent libertarian would say that while he personally thinks abortions are immoral, he doesn’t think the government should regulate morality. But a libertarian who thinks that it’s okay for the government to enact a law if it’s something the libertarian agrees with is really no different than a Democrat or Republican.
This is simply wrong. If you believe a fetus is a human life, then that entity’s right to life trumps the convenience of the mother. If you think it’s just a blob of biomass, then there are no rights to protect.
There are entirely ideologically consistent anti-abortion libertarian positions, it’s a value judgement.
Edit: No need to hijack this thread with this stuff, it’s entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
So if I sincerely believed in Marxism it would be compatible with my libertarian beliefs for me to institute state control over all aspects of the economy?
Libertarianism is about allowing each person the freedom to decide for themselves. Not allowing each person the freedom to agree with your beliefs. Unless you’re willing to support a person’s right to make their own decisions - even when you feel those decisions are completely wrong - then you have no business calling yourself a libertarian.
No. Marxism is incompatable with the ideals of libertarianism. Preventing the murder of human being is not. If you believe a fetus to be a human being.
Nonsense. Libertarianism isn’t about allowing each person the freedom to decide for themselves to commit murder. The issue is whether or not you believe it’s murder. If not, then there’s no grounds to object to it. If you do, then there are no grounds to justify allowing it.
I agree that Marxism is incompatible with the ideals of libertarianism. But my point is that outlawing abortion is also incompatible with the ideals of libertarianism.
As you point out, not everyone agrees that abortion is murder. A libertarian would allow people to make their own decision on the issue and follow their own beliefs. Somebody who decides that abortion is murder and imposes that belief on everyone else is not a libertarian.
And there are probably folks out there who wouldn’t agree that sticking a gun in someone’s mouth and pulling the trigger is murder, either. Doesn’t mean we wouldn’t or shouldn’t prosecute such a person if we caught him, though.
“I believe a person’s right to live is the most fundamental, important right. I believe that abortion is murder. But it’s up to other people to decide whether to commit murder or not. None of my business” is not a logically consistent position. Anymore than “I believe, as a libertarian, people should be able to decide for themselves whether to rob a liquor store and kill the clerk” is.
“I don’t believe abortion is murder, therefore I think it should be legal as no one’s rights are being violated” is a logically consistent position, as is “I believe abortion is murder, and the fetus is afforded the full protection of the law due to its fundamental right to live”.
I’m not saying that believing abortion is murder and therefore making it illegal isn’t a logically consistent position to hold. What I’m saying is that it’s not libertarianism.
Libertarianism is not “I believe that abortion is murder. But it’s up to other people to decide whether to commit murder or not.” It’s “I believe that abortion is murder. But it’s up to other people to decide whether they believe abortion is murder.”