Rabid Raptors or Reasonable Representatives?

Photo by Marco Oriolesi on Unsplash

Well, it appears the conditions are right for the hypocritical Republican “debt limit hawks” to awaken from their slumber.

These birds of prey hibernate during seasons when their party is in charge. To wit, in the four years that Donald Trump was president, the national debt increased by 37%, the fastest national debt growth ever. During those years, congressional Republicans had no problems with raising the debt limit ceiling three times.

Now that there is a Democrat in the White House, the current Republican-controlled House of Representatives is leading the charge for the usual knee-jerk Republican debt-ceiling turmoil by threatening to have the United States default on our current debt obligations. Members of the radical Republican Freedom Caucus, as well as many other House Republicans, have an agenda of spending reductions for Medicare, Social Security and the Defense Department, along with threats of government default if they don’t get their way.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, has stated that “a prolonged impasse over the debt ceiling would cost the U.S. economy up to 6 million jobs, wipe out as much as $15 trillion in household wealth, and send the unemployment rate surging to roughly 9 percent .”

In the last election, residents of Berrien County helped to elect two Republicans to the federal House of Representatives – Tim Walberg and Bill Huizinga. Our former Representative, Fred Upton, retired. Fred’s approach to governing never welcomed the chaos we are seeing proposed by the radical-right House Republicans.

It is now time for our representatives to take a stand on this issue. Will they assume the mantra of rabid raptors or reasonable representatives to resolve this dangerous situation? Their constituents deserve their support for our government meeting its debt obligations and their opposition to the chaos fomented by the most radical members of their party.

Ed Shaffer

Galien